


Witch Hunt

by HollyWasRed



Series: Mother of Wolves [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythical Creatures, Blood, Breeding, Breeding Kink, Consensual Sex, Cults, Evil magic, F/M, Facing Your Fears, Forced Voyeurism, Hybrids, Knotting, Mages, Magic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rituals, Rough Sex, Teratophilia, Vaginal Sex, Violence, Werewolf Sex, Werewolves, Witchcraft, Witches, black magic, werewolf babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:54:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 48,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25637632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HollyWasRed/pseuds/HollyWasRed
Summary: It's been five years since Kaya met Jaycen in the forest; both much and little has changed. Having adapted to a double life and branched out on her own, Kaya keeps in touch with an old friend while splitting her time between human and werewolf companionship. Trying to narrow down a way to potentially reverse Jaycen's curse, her search digs up pieces of the past that may have been better left forgotten.But nothing stays a secret forever.
Relationships: Kaya Summerwood (Original Character) / Jaycen (Original Character)
Series: Mother of Wolves [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848490
Comments: 12
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again, readers.
> 
> So I decided to make this a little series and create a second part because this story just won't leave me alone. I answer some questions from The Maiden And The Wolf and ask a few more. That's the adventure. It got 10k hits the other day which is crazy! To celebrate, I wanted to get on with posting this. Please note, this will eventually become a lot more violent than part 1 of Kaya and Jaycen's story.
> 
> Without further ado...

Kaya stared at the collection of items in front of her, everything laid out in a neat arrangement. A glass bowl holding a scattering of dark red pearls in its base and next to it a small oyster shell with powdered silver filling it to the brim. Neither of these things were easy to come by, and Kaya certainly wasn’t going to let them go to waste. Gathering a breath, Kaya pinched the silver powder and held it over the bowl. The pearls sparkled back at her, shades of deep vermilion catching the light of the setting sun and casting it in rays across the stone walls of her kitchen. 

Kaya’s index finger and thumb released pressure and the powder fell in a dusty wave of shimmering grey against the gold of the sunlight. Nothing happened when it touched the pearls below it, not as much as a sound of impact from the two materials. 

Kaya chewed on her bottom lip. Surely something was supposed to happen? Yet the two components just sat there together in the bowl as if they had always been. Feeling anger boiling to the surface, Kaya resisted the urge to throw the bowl across the room. Instead, she strutted over to the open journal on the opposite countertop, and aggressively scribbled the lack of results with a black feathered quill.

Maybe, for the first time in her life, Lizette was wrong? The thought didn’t make Kaya feel very good at all. In fact, it made her nervous.

In the five years that had passed since Kaya first met Jaycen, much had changed in her life. She lived by herself now, in a small stone cottage on the very edge of the southern border of Erstweald. The house was more isolated than the Summerwood farm itself.

But Kaya was not alone.

For the sake of both her own private life and her werewolf lover, Kaya didn’t seek the company of other humans unless she absolutely had to. She was no recluse by any means, finding work editing books and texts, often finding herself venturing to the small village a few miles west to trade and buy supplies, but she couldn’t remember the last time she took a trip to the capital. The only fellow human that could ever truly understand her and help her with anything when she needed it, was the ageless mage Lizette.  
And now it seems, she would need to speak with her sooner than she thought.

Kaya left the items on the kitchen table and headed up the stairs to the balcony off the master bedroom. She caught her reflection in a mirror in the hallway; her auburn hair was a little shorter, sitting just past her shoulders rather than touching her waist. Her hips were just a little wider, upper body a little stronger, breasts a size larger than she had to begin with. A few scars, some faded stretch marks, a healing scratch arching over her shoulder from just a few days ago, Kaya counted each change and mark on her body as a testament and a reminder to everything she had experienced.

She wasn’t perfect, had never claimed to be, but the ever flowing passage of time assisted in more than just healing, it shaped and changed everything it touched.

Kaya reached the makeshift aviary she had created on the balcony of her bedroom. The space overlooked the front of the house and its neat garden, a cobblestone path breaking the line of grass and flowers to meet a dirt lane that wound its way from the city itself, far to the northeast, and continued beyond past her cottage and into the lands westward. Apart from the trading village, there wasn’t a huge amount, but that was what Kaya liked about the countryside. She had thought the Summerwood farmhouse had been peaceful, but she had been oh so wrong when Kaya had stood at the border of her property and heard the very sound of nothing at all.

The pigeons in the aviary also seemed to enjoy the view. Their varying shades of grey mixed with emerald green and cerulean blue, sometimes streaked with flecks of white, gleamed in the setting sun as they cooed happily and preened one another. The largest of them jumped to the ledge closest to the cage door and waited for her to open it so it could perch on the balcony ledge.

There were only four pigeons in her little aviary. During the day, she left the cage door open and they flew wherever they liked. But each evening as the air cooled and the sun moved into the west, they returned to roost until the next morning came. Kaya wasn’t sure what made them come back, even less how they found their way back from the city itself when she sent them off, but whenever she needed to send a message to Lizette, off one of them went until it returned with an answering reply.

Kaya strongly suspected it was something to do with Lizette’s enigmatic influence, but it sure saved a long trip, and had been that way ever since she had lived in the cottage.

cottage.  
Kaya quickly scribbled out a note to Lizette on a piece of parchment, rolled it up into the small compartment she attached to the pigeon’s leg and released it to the air. The bird would reach the capital before the sun fully set, and would be safe with Lizette until tomorrow.

The eastern horizon darkened further, the sky turning an inky black as the stars finally revealed themselves. There was no moon tonight, no shadows, only a reaching blackness that crept further and further in every direction, every crevice, until it was one huge mass of darkness. The kind where the eyes struggled to focus, unsure what to look at because there wasn’t anything to see. The mind would then conjure up its own creations and shapes in the blackness until it clouded the vision with swirls of a physical form.

But for Kaya, the shapes she saw in the night as the sun disappeared, were not things that her mind was creating out of panic. Standing at the base of the hill closest to her house and directly to the east, Kaya watched as a hulking figure of strength and muscle stood atop it. Currently on all fours, it stretched gracefully and began making its way through the long grass towards her. 

Kaya smiled as Jaycen rose to his full height in front of her, head titling like it so often did as he took in her form. He stooped then, cold nose touching her cheek before Kaya stepped into his space, her arms wrapping around as much of him as she could manage. The chilly night air was quelled from the heat of his body, her personal hearth, and Jaycen returned her embrace with a deep sigh. It had a been a few days since she had last seen him, having been swept up in her work that she had even gone an entire day before realising she had neither eaten nor bathed. Jaycen never seemed to mind if he didn’t see her every day; he was often busy himself.

Kaya could hardly believe it had been five years since she had birthed their children. Four new werewolves, the first of their kind for decades, Kaya could also hardly believe how much they had grown and developed since then.

Lucius, Flint, Ozias and Torin.

Werewolves grew quickly. Jaycen’s human origins mixing with Kaya’s own had made them incredibly intelligent for ones so young, though they did not age like human children. They knew what they were, they knew what their father was and they knew that Kaya was both like them and not like them at the same time. When three sets of blue eyes and one set of green stared back at her when Kaya spoke to them, she felt as though they were looking right into her. They nodded their confirmation when they understood, shook their heads when they did not, tilted it in curiosity or confusion and were well on their way to developing a type of sign language to properly communicate with Kaya.

Because, much like their father, they had yet to utter a single word.

Smart, strong, fast, magical. They were so many things, yet they were robbed of speech, the founding difference between human and animal. Kaya found it so very cruel, her heart squeezing in sympathy at her children when she spoke to them, as it became obvious to her they were attempting to speak back. But no words ever came.

Kaya followed Jaycen to the top of the hill, relaxing against his side as she laid down against him. There was an unspoken question the air. Kaya could almost hear the gears in Jaycen’s head working, wondering. He knew what experiments she was up to these days.

“It didn’t work.” She said quietly. “Literally nothing happened. I dropped the silver dust over the pearls of your blood just as instructed, but nothing came of it.” She felt Jaycen give a shallow sigh. She remembered how Lizette had emptied the vial of his blood into a bowl, closed her fist over it and watched in awe as they swelled into the spherical shapes they were now, hardening and seeming to crystallise under her magic.

For the last couple of years, the wild idea that Jaycen could return to a human form had been coursing through her mind, refusing to relent. Lizette had been away in her homeland when the idea struck and the moment she returned, Kaya had pushed for a way to help her figure this all out. Jaycen was cursed, stuck in a form he had no choosing over, ageless and unending. He was all but immortal, stick him with a blade in the right place and he would bleed out like any other living creature. But avoid all of that? He would go on forever.

Whatever it was that drove Jaycen on before he met Kaya, whatever it was that was keeping him from choosing to end his own existence, it had only increased when she had come into his life. He had something to protect, a few somethings to protect, and he would do so until he couldn’t any longer. Kaya, in a way, felt like she was exploiting that will to keep going, to keep trying, but Jaycen had assured her it was all worth it. He wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was she.

So that was how Kaya had found herself an accomplice of sorts to Lizette. She was no mage herself of course, but Kaya had a connection to the magic of werewolf kind after everything that had transpired, which helped her in several ways. She could sense Jaycen’s presence, feel him at the back of her mind. She could sometimes feel his emotions when they were strong enough, as if they were her own. She could tell if he was near or far, could feel the presence of their children and their own scattered emotions, often a mix of excitement and confusion twisting together in their young minds. It had opened a door to a whole world of research that both Kaya and Lizette never knew existed. They were starting with nothing, having no source material to fall back on because so little had ever truly been written on werewolf studies in such depth that they had to write their own.

One of Kaya’s spare bedrooms had been turned into a full on library of all creatures that had ever been recorded in history. Arcane knowledge and transcribed texts originally in a different language, magic rituals and apparent cures, drawings of beings that had not been seen for centuries. Anything and everything Kaya and Lizette had come across in that area was packed into a room of towering bookshelves. Attempting to find any cross-reference of a curse or spell that had been performed on another human in the past, which had changed their very form, became part of her daily routine.

However, much to their chagrin, nothing of the sort had turned up. It seems whatever it was the witch used to curse Jaycen was the only thing of its kind. 

Kaya pushed herself on one elbow. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll keep looking.” She smiled at him and in response, she felt the confidence he had in her shine through. “I’ll come and see the little ones tomorrow.” She promised, eager to see her children again after almost a week apart.

Another thing that had Kaya stumped about pure werewolves, was that the werewolf young born from the cult _were_ able to speak. . Kaya could find nothing that specified how long that had taken, only that it had happened, which meant the werewolves this cult had summoned must have also been able to speak if their children could, right?

Kaya suspected it was their father’s lack of speech that had been passed down to their own children. Already feeling her mind reeling with all sorts of possibilities, overwhelmed with all the potential outcomes, Kaya pulled herself back into the now and shut the many doors that had been thrown open.

When it got too cold to further lie in the grass, Kaya bid Jaycen a farewell and retreated to her house. Back in the warmth but darkness of the abode, Kaya didn’t need any light to reach her bedroom. She lit a single lantern and pulled a nightgown on once she was stripped from the day’s clothes. Cleaning up the mess downstairs could wait until tomorrow, as could everything else she had planned.

***

The deep red of the pearls of Jaycen’s blood were still sitting idly covered in silver the next morning when Kaya came into the kitchen. Some of Lizette’s research into the history of his kind had revealed that they were susceptible to silver, but now it seemed that only worked with those who were never human in origin. It honestly blew Kaya’s mind. When Lizette had tried to examine Jaycen with magic, all she saw on the other side was a wall of black. An impenetrable darkness that was blocking all of Lizette’s attempts to get through, to see if there was anything on the other side.

So far, nothing was working. The curse that was holding Jaycen hostage had a vice like grip that was refusing to let go. It didn’t seem to have any sort of weakness so far, testing both Kaya and Lizette’s patience to its limits. Jaycen on the other hand, appeared indifferent about it all. He had been a werewolf for much longer than he had been a human and had obviously made peace with it a long time ago. Yet he was perfectly content to let Kaya keep trying.

Kaya washed the pearls down the sink, put the bowl back on a shelf and the silver powder back in a glass container, hiding it away in one of the many cupboards lining the walls of the room. It was then, she heard a fluttering from above. Heading upstairs, the other pigeons already released for the morning at sunrise, Kaya was pleased to see her returning bird that she had sent off yesterday evening. The pigeon allowed her to pick it up in one hand, while she easily unclasped the parchment carrier on its leg. Releasing the bird to join its companions, she opened the paper.

_I’m coming over. I’ll be there by noon._

Simple and effective, Kaya suspected Lizette might want to discuss everything in person the moment she had any results. Or lack of, as it were.

Kaya went about the day, tidying the house, watering the herb garden, cleaning the aviary, feeding her horse, until sure enough around midday, she heard the strange snapping sound of a portal opening.

Lizette’s new favourite way to travel, it was something that made Kaya feel incredibly sick to her stomach the handful of times she had tried it. Conjuring a gateway to somewhere else in the world was incredibly useful, but nonetheless nauseating as one stepped through from wherever they were and ended up somewhere else in just a few seconds. It made her chestnut mare toss her head and whinny in fright at the ear piercing sound it made. It wasn’t exactly a quiet way to travel either.

Calming her mare, Kaya headed to the front of her house to greet Lizette. Dressed in much the same way as she always did, Lizette wore a dark blue dress, its long sleeves almost reaching the ground. It bore a faded pattern of intricate gold swirls and markings, broken with a white sash tied at her waist and matching fur shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Lizette’s greying hair tied in a neat plait, her caramel skin shining in the withering sunlight of early winter. Kaya decided this dress was possibly the least curtain-like out of all her garments.

“Good afternoon!” Lizette waved, rich accent returning with a recent trip to her homeland just a few weeks back. Kaya waved a hello, welcoming Lizette into her home as she had so many times before. 

Once a pot of mint tea was brewed and shared between them, Lizette had emptied the satchel she brought with her onto the table. Rolls of parchment and a few tattered books scattered themselves on the wooden surface. 

“I can’t believe that the silver didn’t work.” Lizette began. “I felt quite sure it would do something at least.” She began sifting through the books for a something specific.

“Me too.” Kaya sighed. “But didn’t the accounts recalling werewolves meeting anything with silver in have them in the form of weapons?”

“They sure did.”

“Weapons which _kill_ werewolves.”

“Yes.” Lizette was forever blunt.

“But we are not trying to kill anything here.” Kaya deadpanned.

“Of course not, the reason for that experiment was ultimately to see if Jaycen’s blood had any sort of reaction to it at all. It might just be a weakness to a lesser werewolf, but Jaycen is totally different and if nothing happened when you put one product with another, then I suppose it is a _good_ thing that silver isn’t a weakness of his. The wolf side protects the human side and the human side protects the wolf side, as his curse wishes it.” Lizette replied, having found what she was looking for in the book in her hands. “On my most recent travels, I found this.” Lizette opened the book to reveal a very detailed drawing, covering both pages, of men in armour clashing with not one, but two werewolves. It was a faded sketch, some of it almost completely gone, but enough remained for Kaya to see. The men were armed with swords and shields, some towards the back of their formation were armed with spears. They seemed to gleam in the light of the full moon in the sky above them. In a corner of one page was some text written in an intricate and flowing script. Noticing her staring at it, Lizette spoke up.

“It is the language of my homeland, Suryntha. It says that when men first came to this part of the world, all they encountered were wild creatures such as these. My country is famous for its silver mines deep beneath the ground, of which they made weapons, armour and even statues and decorations out of for the wealthiest in the land.” Kaya listened carefully as Lizette flipped a page to reveal more drawings and text. “It goes on to say that they drove them west, out of Suryntha and its deserts and into whatever lay beyond the salt flats.”

These werewolves looked slightly different to Kaya. In fact, they looked more like ordinary wolves albeit much larger. Long limbs and clawed fingers, pointed muzzles and small heads. They look gangly and shorter in stature, yet far more natural to look at.

“So if it says that humans drove them west of Suryntha,” Kaya’s voice was low when she spoke. “That’s here. Erstweald is west of Suryntha as Suryntha is east of Erstweald. The werewolves were forced to come _here_.”

Kaya didn’t need to reiterate to Lizette Erstweald’s violent clashes with werewolves hundreds of years in the past, she knew that already.

“Well, it looks like some stayed.” Lizette replied. “No matter what history says about them, there are people in the world just like you who can see them in a different light. I believe the only way they survived extinction was by crossing their genes with humans. They quite literally blended in when some had the ability to change their shapes at will.”

“So you think these wolves here,” Kaya flipped the page back over to the battle scene, “they could change shape? They could have avoided conflict?”

“No, I think they _couldn’t_ change. I think it was only after they came to Erstweald and beyond, met humans who didn’t see them as savages, treated them like people and well, you know what happens next.” Lizette gestured at Kaya with an amused smirk on her face. "They needed a way to hide and they found one." She couldn’t argue with her there.

“That’s awfully…brave. Not knowing what would happen. But how did they gain the ability to become human?” Kaya asked, finger tapping her chin.

“There had to have been magic involved. It’s the only way it could have happened over a relatively short space of time compared to how natural evolution takes place.” 

“Do you think it was intentional?” Kaya wondered. “Do you think the early werewolves were somewhat sapient beings, and when humans realised that, tried to exploit it by making them more ‘human’ per say?”

“It’s possible, but for what purpose?” 

“Why else do humans exploit things in such a way?” Kaya replied. “Maybe they were trying to make weapons out of them for war.” 

“Well, that didn’t work.” Lizette laughed.

“Tell me about the king you worked for, back then. What happened? What was the situation like with werewolves then?” When Kaya asked Lizette those questions, any amusement on her face quickly vanished.

“He simply ordered us to kill Jaycen when I reported back as the only survivor. Nobody was expecting him to be waiting there for us.” Lizette’s voice was low as she spoke, eyes looking out of the window. But Kaya knew it wasn’t the rolling southern hills of Erstweald that she was seeing.

“Is that what you thought he was doing? Waiting in ambush?” Kaya asked. Lizette looked down at her hands.

“No, not really. I don’t think he was there because he wanted to be, but I do strongly believe the girl we found was meant for him. Maybe because he is so different, cursed instead of born, maybe that’s how he broke the spell she was under when he refused to touch her.”

“But who killed all those people around the altar? We know Jaycen didn’t.”

“…I don’t know.” Lizette’s eyes hardened as she spoke. “But whatever did, obviously didn’t want the word getting out about what the cult was doing.”

Kaya realised she had a difficult conversation coming up with Jaycen. What he was doing in that forest clearing all those years ago, what had happened to the woman who escaped and the people freshly slaughtered around him, was not something they had ever properly discussed. At first, Kaya simply didn’t want to upset him by bringing up the past. Afterwards, Kaya realised she didn’t ask because she actually didn’t want to know. Now, it was likely she was going to be forced to understand. She must have been spacing out, because Lizette had reached over and grasped her hands together in that motherly way she sometimes did.

“Kaya, don’t let the things of the past shape your way you see the present. What’s done is done. Jaycen, like so many others in this world, have done terrible things to survive. What’s important is that you see Jaycen for who he really is, not because of the things he has had to do. He hasn’t let those things shape him, and you shouldn’t either.” She was right, of course she was right. Nodding her understanding, Lizette sat back and sipped at her tea.

She stayed for another hour or so, the conversation swinging back between the events of the forest clearing to how Kaya and her family were doing. As it tapered off, a thought came to Kaya.

“Would you…” she began, “do you think you could find the clearing again?” Kaya rephrased the beginning of her question. She had often found herself wondering just where in the forest this clearing was, if it was even still there at all. She hadn’t been looking at Lizette when she asked the question, and when she looked up, dark brown eyes were staring hard at her. Lizette didn’t immediately respond and she simply stared at Kaya, unblinking. It made her jaw clench in anticipation, yet she was unsure of just what that look was all about. Breaking from Lizette’s unwavering stare, Kaya rose from her seat to clear the teapot and cups to the sink. Just as she thought she wasn’t going to answer her, she finally spoke.

“Yes.” She whispered. “To both of those questions.” 

“Both questions?”

“You were going to ask if I could take you there before you asked if I still knew where it was.” Kaya opened her mouth to speak but Lizette cut her off. “And no, I am not a telepath before you ask me again. It’s just the way you worded it.”

Kaya sighed and leaned against the kitchen counter, her back to the window.

“You don’t have to,” she looked at Lizette, “if you don’t want to. I know that place doesn’t exactly hold fond memories.”

“What do you expect to find there?” Lizette asked.

“The witch cursed Jaycen in a similar clearing far away from here. How did you know this well enough to write about it?”

Lizette faltered. “You remember I told you I knew someone who had done what you have done, but many years ago?” Kaya nodded. “Well, she must have asked him, because she told me that Jaycen explained it all to her.”

Kaya chewed on her lip and stared at the floor when Lizette spoke up again. “Why haven’t you asked him this already?”

“I…honestly don’t know.” Kaya frowned at her own words.

“I do.” Lizette said as she stood from the table, gathering the books and parchment rolls into a neat pile. “I think you’re afraid to ask these questions because you’re afraid of what you will learn.” She came to stand in front of Kaya, almost at equal eye level, just a bit shorter. “It’s as I said, don’t let his past actions blur your image of Jaycen. You know who he is really is and that is really all that matters.” She pulled her satchel over her shoulder and headed out the kitchen to the front door in the hallway beyond. Kaya trailed after her.

“You forgot your books.” Kaya pointed back in the direction of the kitchen.

“Keep them, add them to your personal library.” Lizette smiled. “Thank you for the tea, my dear.” She headed out the door and Kaya watched as she walked to the edge of the path in the front garden, stopping to look back at Kaya. “Let me figure out a plan for the clearing and I will take you there.”

With those words as her parting, Kaya watched as she made a few hand gestures in the air, a flash of white light and the crackle of electricity followed, the portal appearing from thin air. She waved at Lizette who stepped into the abnormal white space, watching as it snapped shut behind her.

***

Kaya sat on the rock at the mouth of the cave that made up Jaycen’s abode. She wore a thicker coat than usual as the sky turned a light grey, covering the sunshine and giving the air an icy bite that made her nose and the tips of her ears red. She was sure it would snow soon. The trees that had taken so long to turn varying shades of gold and auburn were well on their way to shedding all the leaves they had. They littered the ground in a blanket of red and yellow, rising higher around the base of the trees they fell from, the current wind not strong enough to blow them far from where they first landed.

Currently, the four young werewolves had made a pile of leaves, burying each other in it before messing it all up and starting again. It never failed to amuse her how humanlike their behaviour was and although they were acting like true five year old humans right now, their minds were at least double the age of that. 

Jaycen sat beside her, watching them with rapt interest. Clearly he had never seen this type of behaviour either, head tilted at them like he really wasn’t sure what they were doing. Their squeaks of joy were enough to tell him that they were simply messing around and not trying to actually bury each other underneath the leaves for good. Kaya hated to kill his mood, but it had to be done.

“Jaycen,” she whispered, voice low so the pups wouldn’t hear, “I must speak with you later.” He caught her tone of voice instantly, brows furrowing, but he nodded.

Much later, when the sky had completely darkened and the pups were asleep in the cave, Kaya and Jaycen sat side by side in the cave’s entrance. The clouds had dissipated enough that the waxing crescent moon in the sky shone brightly, seemingly encouraging the stars to shine just as bright. If Kaya looked at the moon hard enough, she was sure she could see the rest of its darkened outline.

“So I spoke with Lizette today. She provided me with interesting details of potentially some of the first werewolves ever in existence.” Jaycen stiffened a little at the mention of Lizette’s name. After all this time, he still didn’t completely seem to trust her. Regardless of that fact, he piqued his head in interest, so Kaya continued. “They came from her homeland of Suryntha. It appears when humans first came to this part of the world, they drove them away to the west, to here.” Kaya explained everything she had discussed with Lizette, before finally reaching the bit she had been dreading. 

“Jaycen,” Kaya began, “I want to ask you something. Something that I haven’t before.” She felt silly for hesitating, for not feeling sure of herself. She had known Jaycen for long enough by now she never felt afraid of anything, but asking him about the most difficult thing in his life was like opening an old wound and pouring salt on it.

She had his full attention, the yes or no game was about to begin.

“What were you doing in that clearing when Lizette and her comrades found you?” It wasn’t a simple question for him to answer, but she just wanted to get the feelers out there to see how he would react. So far, he was motionless yet watching her closely. With no immediate negative reaction, Kaya continued. “Were you there by choice?” After a moment, he shook his head. “Was that woman who escaped meant for you?” _Yes_. “Did you touch her?” _No_. “Was it magic holding you against your will?” Jaycen seemed to frown, retreating into his own mind to ponder her question. Kaya understood; it was a long time ago. After a moment, Jaycen looked at her once more before slowly nodding Kaya paused, thinking. It was as she suspected and she rested her hand on Jaycen’s arm.

Suddenly, a thought came to Kaya.

“Is the witch who cursed you the same one the cult worshipped?” Jaycen visibly swallowed, deep in thought once more. He seemed to half nod and half shrug, but Kaya understood what he meant; he wasn’t sure but he thought she might be.

So, he was summoned with evil magic that the cult performed, a woman was offered to him but he refused her and when he did, the spell broke. Someone or _something_ there in attendance then proceeded to tear everyone to pieces which possibly gave the woman time to escape in the chaos that ensued. They did so to prevent the knowledge escaping that such powerful dark magic had a weakness. Whatever residual magic that had brought Jaycen there in the first place managed to hold him there until Lizette found him days later when she and her fellow mages had used the blood markings on the woman’s body to pinpoint the preliminary location.

The forest clearing was the scene of a most terrible crime and had not been investigated since. Meaning that when Lizette would take Kaya there, they would potentially be the first people there in nearly one hundred years. Eager to see such a place yet afraid at the same time, Kaya firmly believed it was the best starting point they had. With most other methods of potentially curing Jaycen exhausted, it all came down to the source;

To the witch that started it all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lizette takes Kaya to a place of many atrocities and dark delights in equal measure; the forest clearing of legend.

Kaya spent the next few nights in the cave with her family. After finishing the daily chores around the house during the day, she spent the early evenings before dinner editing a few pieces of literature she had been sent to review. It was her actual job now, sending the finished work off with the courier that passed by each week and receiving new material to look at. The pay for such a thing was enough for Kaya to get by on, and considering she didn’t desire much to spend it on, her small pot of wealth had accumulated nicely over time.

When the dishes were clean and the house secure for the night, she packed a small overnight bag, met Jaycen at the hill near her house and followed him back to the cave. Isolated as her house now was, it was safe enough for Jaycen to quite literally step foot on her property no matter the time of day. Visitors were rare and the visibility to spy anyone incoming long before they actually arrived was ideal.

The next few nights that followed, Kaya found herself pressed close to the warm embrace of her partner. She would run her hands through the soft ebony fur, fascinated that it had grown longer for the winter incoming and how it almost completely swallowed her hands when she buried them far enough into it. The children’s coats seemed to be doing the exact same thing. Although she always fell asleep in Jaycen’s arms, she woke with their four children pushed between them. It made her heart clench with adoration, wrapped over each other as they always had done. Kaya loved them all equally, as any mother should, but her heart seemed to hold a special place for Torin with his matching auburn fur like her hair and vibrant green eyes that mirrored her stare. 

It was that exact youngster who often snuggled into her lap for an hour or so each night before she set him down with his brothers to sleep.

It was the fifth night in a row Kaya was staying with Jaycen, and she found herself sitting against the rock outside the cave, nose buried so far in the thick book she held up that she didn’t notice Torin approaching her until he was right next to her.

“Oh! I’m so sorry sweet thing, I was miles away.” She laughed and putting the book down, welcomed the young werewolf into her embrace which he eagerly accepted. Standing at her waist when on two legs, he easily covered her entire lap with no effort, yet he was much lighter than she always expected. It was a strange combination.

Running her hand down Torin’s back and through the soft, dark red fur, she marvelled at just how much he had taken after her. “Will you ever speak to me?” She wondered aloud, voice just a whisper. It still felt so strange to her that she couldn’t simply have a conversation with them like she did with Lizette, firing questions and answers off at each other as casually as breathing or blinking.

Torin raised his head to look at his mother, green eyes curious and intelligent for one so young. Lifting one hand, he did a particular type of sign language that all four of her children had developed to mean one thing and one thing only.

_Soon._

Kaya stared dumbfounded at her youngest for a moment, before gathering herself and smiling at him. If she had the tiniest bit of hope for any of her children to speak one day, it was the strongest with Torin. He seemed to be trying the hardest to do so.

That night when the sun had finally set and cast the world in absolute darkness, Kaya whispered to Jaycen what had happened earlier with their youngest. She voiced how she felt, how she hoped Lucius, Flint and Ozias might speak but that if they did, Torin would be the first. Jaycen simply smiled, an awkward facial expression for one whose mouth was full of sharp teeth, but Kaya had seen the expression enough to know what it was.

The following day when Kaya returned home late in the morning, she found Lizette sitting on the low stone wall surrounding the edge of Kaya’s front lawn of her house. Only a little bit surprised to see the mage unannounced, Kaya noticed she had a sturdy looking satchel over her shoulder and was kitted in clothes that suited comfort more than style; a half dress that reached her knees with slightly loose trousers tucked into ankle boots. A dark blue coat unbuttoned and made from wool was wrapped around Lizette’s thin frame and her long hair remained in a plait, much the same style as when Kaya had last seen her.

After a brief greeting and making herself something light to eat, Kaya readied herself for what the day might bring. She dressed in trousers too, pulling on boots that came up to her knees, a fitted cotton shirt, a long scarf she could wrap around her neck a couple of times and an equally warm coat. Packing a few essentials into the most appropriate bag she could find, Kaya joined Lizette by the wall once the cottage was locked up.

“Are you ready?” Lizette asked, voice and face neutral. Kaya could only nod at her older friend, unsure of what she would find, but certain this was the right path to take. With the hand gesture she used to create portals, Kaya grimaced when one materialised in front of her, nothing but an obscure whiteness on the other side of it. The portal hummed with energy, a low bass sound in her ears that felt like it went right into her bones. Drawing in a slow, deep breath, Kaya stepped through the portal.

For a split second, it felt as though she was both floating and falling at the same time. Stomach lurching and head spinning, Kaya squeezed her eyes shut and fought the urge to vomit. In that split second, there was nothing underneath her feet, nothing to touch and nothing to feel. Her eyes stayed firmly shut until suddenly, the whiteness she could feel behind her closed eyelids went black and the ground reappeared underfoot. Its abrupt solidity made Kaya fall to her knees and gasp audibly, her hands meeting cool soft grass underneath. Lizette appeared behind her a moment later and instead of snapping shut like they usually did, the portal fizzled before delicately fading away. Huh, so they could be quiet when they needed to be. 

Lizette immediately scanned the area for any perceived threats, her dark eyes darting this way and that. Kaya watched her, feeling Lizette’s tension which kept her still on her knees on the ground. The concern and realisation that they might not be safe quickly had her nausea dissipating before it had time to remind her what she had eaten for breakfast. 

They were in a forest. Huge thick trees surrounded them with their roots twisting and curling over each other, diving in and out of the ground. Ivy and ferns climbed their way up, wrapping around the massive tree trunks like a fisherman’s net flung into the sea, snaring the tree with the tendrils of their countless vines. Far above them, the dense canopy of the trees obscured the sunlight that fought a losing battle to get through, which in turn made the ground cool and slightly damp under Kaya’s touch. Only sparse pinpricks of sunlight shone through, meagre in their attempt to bring natural light to the bottom of the forest floor, yet the plant life was so numerous to the point that Kaya couldn’t see the earth itself, only the green of coniferous life that had adapted perfectly to living in the near permanent shade.

Kaya got to her feet, wiping her hands on coat as she did so. “Which way?” She asked. Everywhere she turned, it all looked the same. How easily could one get lost in this endless forest?

“This way.” Lizette replied after only a moment of thought. Kaya fell into step behind her and the two trod a slow, steady and careful path through the growth until Lizette decided to speak again. “So, how did Jaycen take the news that you wanted to come here?” 

“As well as can be I suppose.” Kaya replied. “I think he actually wasn’t that surprised considering he knows how curious I am of his whole story. It’s all I asked him about in the beginning after all.” Kaya wouldn’t forget that excited feeling she had felt, the way her fear had turned into something else entirely when she had first met Jaycen on a hot summer’s day in a place that held many memories for them, even now. 

“He didn’t have any problem with it?” Lizette broke Kaya’s thoughts of the little clearing they used to meet up in and the memory of the pond water’s refreshing touch on her skin.

“No. He trusts me to know what I’m doing.” Kaya stepped gracefully over a particularly large root arching from the ground. “He trusts you too, you know.”

“Ha! That I doubt very much.” Lizette barked a laugh at Kaya’s words.

“He does, maybe just a little bit.” 

“Kaya, he doesn’t trust me as a person. He trusts that I can get things done and keep you safe at the same time.” Lizette had stopped to look at Kaya when she spoke, eyes sincere. “You haven’t forgotten what we tried to do to each other? What he tried to do when he saw me for the first time in all those years?” The memory of how Lizette had done absolutely nothing to fight back when Jaycen had almost clawed her head off came rushing back to Kaya.

“But he didn’t kill you.”

“Only because you told him not to.”

“Then why didn’t you fight back?” Kaya queried and Lizette smirked.

“Because I trusted you to do the right thing.” With that said, she continued walking. Kaya took in her words for what they really meant. Lizette had needed Kaya for information about Jaycen to compare to what she knew about him already, the same way that Kaya had needed Lizette with help in carrying his children and her magic to help find a way to relieve herself of her family noticing what was going on.

It was all behind her now. Unlike him, Lizette clearly didn’t hold a grudge for what Jaycen had tried to do, had had years to come to terms with the knowledge he had spared her life once, even if he initially wasn’t willing to do so again without Kaya intervening directly.

Quickening her pace to catch up, Kaya continued to follow Lizette as the mage picked her way through the trees. There were no trodden paths, no snapped branches or flattened grass to indicate that anyone had come this way in a very long time. The air had a chill to it, making the hair on her arms stand up even underneath the warmth of her clothes. It was strangely both dark but well-lit enough for Kaya to see where she going, obviously for Lizette too, yet her sense of direction felt all screwed up. The lack of sunlight gave Kaya no way to tell in which direction they were travelling, but if she had to guess, she would say south. The further south into the already southern forest was the only place they could really be heading.

After pondering this for several more minutes, Lizette came to a halt. “We are almost there.” Her voice had dropped to almost a whisper and she pointed ahead. Finally, the trees seemed to be thinning out. They didn’t shrink in their size by any means, only sparse themselves out to make it easier to walk between them. The grasses stayed a vibrant green and still reached her ankles and the ferns languished in the room they had to fan themselves out. Not too far in the distance, Kaya could see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

The clearing was just up ahead.

Steeling her excitement and anticipation, Kaya followed Lizette as she walked a brisker pace now, much easier to do so with the ground more shallow. Kaya could hear the wind now as it managed to blow down in between the trees rather than simply brush against their highest leaves, and it pushed the chill the air already had right into her core. It was getting colder the closer they got to the clearing.

A strange shrill pierced the air before the cause of the noise revealed itself. Landing on a branch, high enough to be at a safe distance yet low enough to see clearly, sat a black and white bird. It couldn’t have been much larger than the pigeons Kaya kept, its feathers an intricate pattern of obsidian and white as pure as the snowfall. They seemed to almost imitate a chequered pattern yet had jagged edges. A long crimson beak jutted from the bird’s head, curving gracefully like a sickle. Equally bright red eyes watched Lizette and Kaya as they paused to observe the bird. Kaya had never seen anything like it in her life.

“Have you ever seen one of those before?” Kaya asked Lizette, but the mage slowly shook her head. The bird made its awful sound once again, its call beginning high then dropping in pitch as it tapered off. A second bird flew through a gap in the trees to land next to its kin.

“Let’s keep moving.” Lizette tugged at Kaya’s coat sleeve as she trekked ahead. Kaya followed, sparing a glance back the birds above. For some reason, they made her feel nervous, especially with the way they seemed to watch her as she moved away. Thankfully, they did not follow.

Even though the forest was silent, the strange bird’s call was all Kaya could seem to hear in her mind as she and Lizette finally reached the clearing. Just like she suspected, the trees instantly stopped, creating a gentle circle of pale green, open space. She could see the other side, it was large, and she was guessing that it would take at least ten minutes or so to walk across it. But it was what lie in the centre of the clearing that drew her attention.

Much like its description in Jaycen’s book, the altar sat in all its ugly glory. Tarnished and weathered grey rock that had been brought here for sole purpose of dark magic and even darker delights, it was bigger than Kaya had imagined. The ground around it was raised a little, the slight incline was felt on her knees as she slowly made her way up to it. This was the very place from the book. The place where Lizette and her comrades had first encountered Jaycen and fought him amongst the gore of countless dead bodies. It felt so strange to be standing here, the ghost of the past seemed to whisper the atrocities on the wind. Evil had been here, that much was obvious, as the cold stone that was the altar seemed to sing with the memory of it, of its touch. 

Kaya looked at the ground around her. In Jaycen’s book, Lizette had said it was scarred with symbols akin to the ones on the dead woman’s body, yet there was nothing to be seen. The grass was paler than that in the forest, but it was growing as if it had always been doing so.

“What do you think made the marks on the ground?” Kaya voiced her internal thoughts to Lizette. “Was it magic? Fire?” Kaya looked over her shoulder to Lizette. The mage was rooted to the spot, eyes stern and jaw tense. Kaya noticed her chest taking quick shallow breaths. “Lizette? Are you alright?” Kaya inched closer to her, one hand reaching out when swiftly, Lizette seemed to snap out of it.

“Yes, I’m fine.” She shook her head as if clearing whatever negative thoughts she had in that moment. “Sorry,” she muttered, “for a moment it was like…I was back there.” Kaya nodded her understanding.

“I know this place isn’t where you want to be, but I’m grateful you’re strong enough to come here with me, despite the bad memories it brings up.” Kaya kept her voice low as if not to startle Lizette when she spoke. The mage inclined her head, eyes focusing at last.

“In answer to your question,” she finally stepped forward and further into the clearing. “I think the ground was marked with magic, the same way that magic has now covered it up.” Lizette stooped to touch the grass, pulling some blades of it free and watching them fall back down when she stood up. 

Kaya turned her attention to the altar once again, pushing down the sick feeling it gave her just by looking at it. It appeared to be made from granite and upon closer inspection, was lined with veins of white.

“It’s quartz.” Lizette answered Kaya’s question before she could ask it. “It’s often found in granite but it’s naturally occurring.” So, there was nothing special about that then. When Kaya had pictured the altar in her mind, she had this visage of a blood stained wreck of stone that was crumbling with the weight of the acts that pressed down on it, both physically and metaphorically. Yet it was strong and sturdy, no bloody stains or visceral leftovers to be found.

“Considering what it was used for, it doesn’t look very comfortable.” Kaya grimaced at the thought of laying down on it and having to stay there throughout the entire process of what the ritual had summoned. If she recalled correctly, the woman would lay there naked, covered in the markings that were once cut into the ground, and proceed to have sex with the werewolf that was summoned until he was finished.

The altar was basically a large stone bed with no cushions or soft mattress to make the process a little more comfortable. The first time Kaya had slept with Jaycen, she had practically passed out from the pleasure of it, of the feel of how huge he felt inside her and how much he had filled her up. She had had soft grass under her back and Jaycen had been as gentle as possible. She doubted very much that the women in this cult would have had a lover as considerate a wolf as Kaya had now.

There was nothing to show the women would be chained or held down either. There were no shackles in the stone or leftover rope, nothing of the sort.

“Did they really just lie here?” Kaya asked.

“From the limited information we found on them, yes, they just laid there and took what was given. It was considered an honour.”

“Tsk, an _honour_ , sure. That’s why they had that terrified woman captured? She surely couldn’t have been a part of the cult?” 

“I don’t know for sure, but I doubt it. She could barely get two words out and the things she did say, were just loosely describing Jaycen himself.” Lizette came to stand next to Kaya, her lip curled in disgust as she studied the altar. “There were no wounds on her apart from some bruising and cuts she had obviously inflicted herself from traipsing around in the muck of the marshes for however long she had been doing that for. She was skin and bone when we found her.”

Kaya remembered reading about that poor woman; she hadn’t been violated or injured by anyone or anything except by nature on her attempt to get back home. 

“Where was she from?” Kaya asked. “Was she from Erstweald or the marshlands?”

“She was Erstwealdian. She had been missing for some time, probably one of the first to disappear when it all started.”

“Why was she heading back through the marsh?”

Lizette shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know.” There were so many unanswered questions that would likely stay that way and it made Kaya grit her teeth. Daring to touch the surface of the altar, Kaya found it smooth on its top and rough as sandpaper everywhere else.

“There aren’t even any…” Kaya cut herself off, half talking to herself when she realised she had begun speaking out loud, but Lizette had heard.

“Aren’t any what?” She questioned.

“Umm…you know, claw marks and stuff.” Kaya was glad that her hair had fallen forward a little to cover her face lest Lizette see the blush on her cheeks that was forming.

“Claw marks? The women didn’t fight the werewolves on top of the altar, Kaya.” 

“Yes I know that, what I mean is -” Kaya felt huge embarrassment rising up and heating her cheeks further. She cleared her throat. “What I mean Lizette, is that werewolves have huge claws in case you didn’t realise, and when Jaycen and I…you know, have sex…his claws always scratch the ground up. I just thought the stone would be marked with the evidence of them holding onto it or something.” She said the last part in a rush, as quick as she could get her words out. 

“Oh, I see.” Kaya refused to look at Lizette when she spoke, but she could hear the mirth in her tone. “Well, that does make sense now that you mention it, but again, it seems as though whatever magic fixed the ground likely did the same with the altar to remove any evidence of anything happening here at all.”

“Yes, right. Of course! Anyway…” Kaya trailed off, desperate to move the conversation away from her sex life.

Moving around the slab of stone proved to show nothing out of place. There was nothing carved into the granite surface just like the grass was free of the scorch marks that were once here. It really was as if nothing had been here at all, the only odd thing about the altar was its location. It was the only thing out of the ordinary. 

“How many werewolves had shown up in those records you mentioned? The ones that tracked everything they summoned.”

“They were very brief accounts which I hardly think were the whole thing, but we counted seven.” Lizette replied.

_Seven._

Seven women had laid down here let a werewolf have their way with them and if they were as fertile as she apparently was with four pups, that meant there were potentially, or at least had been at one point, up to _twenty eight_ new werewolves somewhere in Erstweald and beyond. 

“The records didn’t state if every woman got pregnant each time though, that knowledge was withheld.” Lizette sighed. “We would be a lot wiser if I could get my hands on that piece of information.” She continued muttering to herself for a moment, switching to her native tongue and then back again before she stopped and looked at Kaya. “Be honest with me, how many times did you have sex with Jaycen before you came to me thinking you had heat stroke?” 

Kaya could hardly believe the conversation had swerved back to her again, but she relented. She coughed, “I actually don’t know. I wasn’t keeping count.”

Lizette threw her head back in a throaty laugh which made Kaya’s cheeks heat up once more. “Oh come on, don’t be embarrassed. I am not trying to make you feel that way, I am just curious.” Lizette affirmed to Kaya. “You have more knowledge about that than I do.”

“Yeah, I know.” Kaya laughed a little too.

“I’m only asking because the records stated that each woman only went once as part of the ritual. Unless there is some further unshared knowledge that has been lost to the flow of time, it appears they either only got one chance and one chance only to conceive, or that was it.” Lizette shrugged, walking in a slow circle around the altar. “If it took you several tries then there was obviously something else going on here. More dark magic, more power from the blood provided.”

“Umm, I don’t think it took several tries…” How was Kaya supposed to word this to Lizette in a way that she wouldn’t die of embarrassment for sure? In as few words as possible, that’s how. “You have to be knotted. That’s it.” 

It seem to take Lizette several moments to process what Kaya had said and when it finally seemed to sink in, she heaved a half sigh half laugh, running one hand down her face. “Oh Kaya, you’re a braver woman than I, that’s for sure.” 

Kaya had learned this fact when confronting Jaycen about it post-coitus. He revealed he hadn’t knotted her since because, as it turned out, that was the only way to get her pregnant. That knowledge shouldn’t have surprised her considering the amount of times they had slept together in five years and no further children had come from it. It was also why, when she was pregnant but had not yet realised, he hadn’t knotted her again for there was not only no need, but it could potentially harm the developing babies by breaching her cervix.

A strange mix of biology and werewolf magic, that’s what Kaya had decided it was. Werewolves would fascinate her until the ends of her days.

After several more minutes of inspecting the altar, Kaya walked a little ways off from it, now closer to the other side of the clearing. The air was still cold yet it held a heaviness that Kaya could feel in her lungs when she inhaled. She realised it was harder to push out a breath than it was to take one in, the air seemed to cling to her insides and came out raggedy. Clearing her throat, Kaya heard a twig snap sharply behind her.

Whirling on the spot, Kaya scanned the trees. There were no other sounds in the clearing, no birds or rustling leaves in the breeze; pure silence. The sound of the twig breaking under force seemed so incredibly loud, louder than it probably was, but even Lizette had heard it from her place still near the altar. The mage was by her side in an instant, one fist clenched with readying power. 

No further sound came, no other twigs snapped. It was as if it had never happened, but Kaya knew what she had heard. There was no movement from the treeline from what she could see, nothing to suggest that something was lingering in the shadows of the tree trunks, keeping itself hidden.

“Do you sense anything?” Kaya whispered to Lizette, never taking her eyes off the treeline.

“No.” Lizette’s reply was just as quiet.

“Maybe it was just an animal, or one of those birds?” Lizette didn’t immediately reply but unclenched her fist, power receding.

“We have lingered here long enough for one day. Let’s go.” She turned and headed back the way she had come. Kaya took a few steps backwards before finally turning around and following suit. She reached the other side and watched as Lizette summoned her portal, its blank whiteness appearing neatly before them once more. This time, Lizette stepped through first.

Just as Kaya was about to follow, something made her spare a glance back across the clearing beyond the altar to the trees on the other side. For one awful moment, she swore she saw movement. A shadow, a large one, melted behind one of the trees and disappeared. White hot fear gripped Kaya’s stomach, every instinct in her body telling her to run, to get as far away as possible.

Without another look, she stepped through the portal.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaya receives an unwilling taste of the evil that lingers in the forest clearing and gets a little help from Jaycen to help distract her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up for some perfectly consensual somnophilia...sort of ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Kaya knew Jaycen was no fool, he knew her too well. The children were asleep in the depth of the cave, safe from the outside world for another day. She sat up against a tree opposite the cave’s mouth, legs stretched out in front of her. Try as she might, she couldn’t relax. 

Jaycen had started a small fire nearby which helped warm Kaya right down to her bones, yet her did nothing to ease her tension. She had been back from the clearing for three days now but this was the first time she had properly seen Jaycen. After telling him about what she and Lizette had found, or lack of, she had not yet divulged one final piece of information. Jaycen knew she wasn’t revealing the whole story, and Kaya could hide it no longer.

“I saw something.” She whispered. “In the clearing, right as we were about to leave.” Jaycen’s eyes hardened, spine rigid as he listened to her. “I still don’t know if it was a trick of the light or genuinely something there, but it’s all I’ve been thinking about. Something made me turn around at the last moment. I had to take a look back but I don’t know why.” Jaycen came closer to Kaya, his presence welcoming.

He lifted a hand and pointed to her, to himself and then pointed out towards the forest. It took a moment for Kaya to realise what he was trying to say.

“You…want to go there?” She asked.

He nodded.

Kaya felt her heart hammering in her chest. “You would come with us? To that awful place?” He gestured at her, huffing as he did so as if to say, _you did_. She couldn’t exactly argue with him there. Kaya cupped the side of his face. “That place holds nothing but bad memories for you, my love.” But Jaycen didn’t relent.

It was how Kaya found herself standing on the hill next to her home several days later with Jaycen at her side. Their boys were competent enough to look after themselves for the day, several days if Kaya thought about it, but one day was enough to start with. Lucius was ‘in charge’ as it were, something he took great delight in as the eldest of the four. Even though he was the eldest by several minutes, Kaya didn’t spoil his moment of triumph. Whereas Flint and Ozias were sure to give him hell for it, she had a feeling Torin would be his usual calm self and stay out of it all.

As they watched Lizette walk up the hill to greet them, Kaya saw Jaycen out of the corner of her vision, the fur on his back bristling a little.

“I have some news.” The mage announced as soon as she was within earshot of Kaya. 

“Me too.” Kaya replied, not waiting for Lizette to speak. “Jaycen is coming with us this time.” 

If Lizette was surprised, she didn’t show it. “Very well,” was all she responded with.

“So, what’s your news?” Kaya asked.

“Those birds we saw, the black and white ones, I’ve been looking into them to see if I could find out what they are and this,” she handed Kaya some papers from her satchel, “is what they are.” The papers had several different drawings of them both perched and in flight. “They’re a rare type of crow.” Lizette said as if that explained everything. 

Kaya didn’t follow. “So…we saw a rare crow, so what?” 

“They feast on dead flesh, like vultures. They can smell it for miles and apparently, that is what made their beaks and eyes red, from consuming the blood of the dead, hence their nickname of ‘vampire birds’.” 

“Gross.” Kaya handed grimaced and handed back the papers to Lizette who shoved them back in her satchel.

“Gross indeed, but they don’t go anywhere that there isn’t death, which means only one thing.” Kaya suddenly realised what Lizette was getting at.

“Oh Gods, that means –” but Lizette finished her sentence for her.

“That’s right, something dead was either in or nearby that clearing and recently, making them linger near it.” Lizette turned and waved her hand, a portal appearing seconds later. “Be on your guard.” She said it like a warning and Kaya took it to heart. Keeping a firm grip on Jaycen’s arm, she followed Lizette through the portal and out the other side.

They were closer this time, almost in the exact same spot where they had seen these ‘vampire birds’. Thankfully, they were not there today. 

As the clearing came into view once more, looking entirely indifferent from before, Kaya watched as Jaycen slowly prowled out of the trees and into its open space. Silence, like last time, no noise apart from the sound of all their footsteps in the short grass beneath. Jaycen paused, taking in the morbid view. The last time he was here, he was fighting for his life, fighting against Lizette. He had lost a finger, had been acting as if he had truly lost his mind to the rage that coursed through him when he was found, surrounded by the corpses of those he did not kill.

It felt even colder today, the incoming winter making the air temperature drop several degrees when Kaya suddenly noticed a light fog hovering just above the ground, as if afraid to touch down upon it. It swirled as the trio moved through it and further into the space. Jaycen’s eyes darted from left to right, focused and cautious. He sniffed the air a number of times before lowering his head a little to do the same to the ground.

She heard Lizette exhale in a shaky way, which made Kaya nervous. Her apprehension increased further when she heard her whisper, “something has been here.” Kaya wasn’t sure if she was talking to herself, to her and Jaycen or simply making an observation, but it made her jaw tight and her hackles rise. Her blood turned to ice when she felt the chill from the air seep into her being. The whole clearing was suddenly on edge and the awful feeling of being watched like she was before made Kaya’s eyes direct themselves to where she was sure she had seen that shadow.

Nothing was there but the permeating mist.

Jaycen took a few steps back towards Kaya, positioning himself protectively in front of her and blocking the view from where she was looking. Lizette was just off to her right, several paces ahead. Both of her fists were clenched this time and although Kaya wasn’t close enough to feel it, she could imagine the warmth of the energy building within and radiating from her.

But Kaya didn’t want Jaycen blocking her view. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate him attempting to shield her from whatever it was he sensed, but not having any supernatural abilities on her side made a tiny part of her feel left out. 

Taking a small step to her left, turning her head in that direction, Kaya was hit with a scent so strong it could have been right under her nose. 

_The forest, dew on the grass in the afternoon, fallen pine leaves on the dry ground._

Kaya froze, heartbeat hammering wildly. The scent on the air reminded her of Jaycen and although he was right in front of her, it was coming from elsewhere, from the edge of the clearing.

This was something else. _Someone_ else.

Kaya regarded Jaycen with what she was sure a look of disbelief on her face, yet was surprised to see that he returned it. Brows drawn, upper lips curled back, eyes more serious than Kaya had ever seen them. In that moment, she wanted to run to him, to tell him that it was alright, but a sound from within the forest pulled her back into the present.

A twig snapping under the force of heavy pressure, the aggressiveness of it made Kaya flinch. It drew her attention sharply back to the left, the source of its sound, and she squinted her eyes hard to focus them from whence it came. The deep vibration of Jaycen’s growl seemed to force Kaya to move back towards him. It was in that moment, she realised she was afraid. 

Noises elsewhere, familiar scents that sent her mind reeling, it was a lot for Kaya to take in at once. Her mind seemed to chase the scent of another that smelt so much like Jaycen, yet it wasn’t at the same time. All her senses followed the sound of the twig snapping and its cause finally emerged from the trees.

A werewolf, large, robust and terrifying. From the shadows, just his upper half seemed to emerge, revealing all but white fur, crimson eyes and teeth stained with the blood of many. His lips seemed to be stuck in a curled back position as if they were forced to be so, yanked hard to be kept in that place. Looking harder, Kaya thought it was as if they had always been that way as too much gum showed above his fangs, as if his lips had been completely torn off. Long thick arms with claws that behest the ground with enough force to break the earth underneath, tearing the grass and marring it with rage that barely held the werewolf in its place, body tense and ready to strike.

“Run!” Lizette’s voice rose above the chaos in Kaya’s mind and from the corner of her eye she saw the mage throw out her arms, the white nothingness of a portal shoving itself into the space in front of her before she disappeared within it. The portal lingered, its vast expanse humming with unearthly tension. Kaya took several steps back towards it, unable to tear her gaze away from the figure at the edge of the forest clearing. The opposing werewolf had strode completely into the clearing, revealing a thinner body compared to Jaycen but no less intimidating and strong. Its limbs were longer and even crouched it was clearly taller than him.

Jaycen himself had barely moved. He was hunkered down as if about to pounce, his growl maintaining its steady sound directed at the other werewolf while he remained in place. Kaya opened her mouth to call his name, but no sound came out. Her breath caught in her lungs as behind from where the werewolf had come from, another figure emerged.

A woman. Pale skin and even paler hair, her eyes shone as blue as the sky through long eyelashes that seemed to flutter as she blinked. She was scantily dressed, hardly wearing anything at all as Kaya took in her form and made out a thin piece of white fabric that started at her right ankle, wound its way up her leg, across her groin and barely covered her breasts. It continued to wrap once around her throat before entwining down her left arm. Kaya likened it to that of a snake with the elegant way it clasped her, conveniently covering her in her most intimate of places. 

She was beautiful and her face was delicate with high cheekbones and a pointed chin. She looked exotic, as if she wasn’t from Erstweald at all but somewhere else entirely, beyond even the furthest lands whose names had been forgotten with time. She took a few careful steps forward and lifted one hand to place it on the white werewolf’s shoulder. The creature seemed to sigh in pleasure, relaxing under the touch of the woman and sitting back on its haunches, awaiting its next command. 

The striking woman’s face was alighted with a small smile, yet it didn’t reach her eyes. Instead, those bright eyes focused straight at Kaya. For a moment, everything seemed to stand still in its place as the woman stared at Kaya; it could have been a few seconds or it could have been a few hours and she wouldn’t have known the difference. When the woman’s eyes finally did move from her they instantly shifted to Jaycen, pinning him with that same cerulean stare.

Jaycen flinched, his body twisting back towards Kaya as he half dragged and half pushed her in the direction of the portal. Unable to stop staring at the woman who was looking back at her once again, Kaya’s stomach clenched with fear at the tantalizing smile that had made its way onto the woman’s face. On one of such beauty, it was out of place, wrong, erroneous; so many other words came to Kaya’s mind but they all meant the same thing. It held promises of pleasure and pain, of joy and sadness, so many tumultuous comparable extremes that it made Kaya’s mind reel. It was like she could see it all in her mind’s eye and when she blinked hard, there she was.

She was laying on the altar, naked and bare. The sky above was a mix of black and red that mingled together and seeped into the treeline surrounding the clearing so she was unable to distinguish where one ended and the other began. Nothing was physically holding her down, yet Kaya couldn’t move, an invisible force apparently restraining her and keeping her in place. Was it her own fear holding her down? The churning feeling in her stomach that had spread through every vein in her body and made her bones ache. Or was it something else? Magic, evil and sinister and meant for doing harm. 

Soft whispering around her made Kaya’s head snap in all directions. There were other women everywhere, clustered around the altar in a circle and equally as naked, their skin marked with blood in twisting swirling patterns. Their countless voices were unintelligible, hushed as they were, eyes downcast and hands joined, they swayed on their feet as if barely able to keep standing. 

A rustling noise from the base of the altar and right next to her feet drew Kaya’s attention down and a choked sound made its way from her mouth. The pale woman, garbed in her thin single strip of white cloth, seemed to float upwards to position herself above Kaya. She outstretched her hands and they ghosted over her ankles, up her legs, over her hips and to her stomach where she then drew them back. The woman’s touch was like ice, yet Kaya felt as if she were on fire, expecting to see burns where the spindly fingers had been yet when she bared a split second to look down, there was nothing but her stark nakedness in the strange mix of dark and light.

Kaya’s rising panic threatened to spill out and pour forth as that awful smile was suddenly all she could see. Kaya could feel her lungs tingling as she gasped for air, she could feel the sweat on her brow and the freezing touch on her skin. The strange floating woman blinked once, twice down at her, her smile never faltering before her entire form burst in spray of crimson.

It drenched Kaya’s body, bathing her in a torrent of blood as the woman who had been right in front of her moments before exploded in a wave of torrid gore. It went into her eyes, up her nose and into her mouth, only to be pushed back out a moment later as Kaya _screamed._

The sound erupted from her chest and ripped past her teeth, into the air of the clearing as Kaya could do nothing to escape the viscera now covering her in a sticky mess of a bodily fluid. Her own scream made her ears ring, she could feel her vocal chords straining under the force of her own voice and on the verge of collapse.

Vision going darker than the shades of the sky above, Kaya’s head was pulled back by something with enough force to make her head hit the stone underneath her, an audible crack lashing through her head and making her jaw snap shut. When she forced it back open to draw in a huge breath of air, it tasted fresh on her tongue. Gone was the acrid smell of smoke and the tang of iron at the back of her mouth.

When Kaya’s eyes opened she saw the sky was blue, not red and black. Able to move her arms freely, she abruptly sat up, gasping once more and quickly taking in her surroundings.

In front of her was Jaycen and Lizette. Their faces totally different in every way yet the same confused and fearful look adorned both of them.

“Kaya?” Lizette whispered. “Are you with us?” She sounded afraid, something Kaya had never heard Lizette sound in all the years she had known her. Blinking away the images of that woman’s smile, of the dark red sky and her helpless naked self and the _blood_ , Kaya forced herself to steady her breathing and focus but it was difficult, so very difficult to do such a simple thing.

She heard her name uttered again and after a few more deep breaths, the fear in her gut finally quelling, Kaya nodded.

“I’m with you.” She managed to get out, voice oddly hoarse. 

“Come on, let me help you up.” Lizette held out her hand, rising from her kneeling position and making Kaya realise she was sitting on the grass with her back propped up against a tree.

For a second, Lizette’s outstretched hand was replaced with a pale thin one that seemed to glow with its own inner light. But when Kaya blinked hard, it was just Lizette’s caramel coloured skin in her field of vision. Taking it, Lizette steadied her as she helped haul Kaya to her feet. She swayed for a moment, the world fuzzy at the edges. When her other hand reached out it landed in the soft fur of Jaycen’s shoulder.

“Take me home.” Kaya pleaded to him and he nodded, gathering her into his arms. Lizette fell into step behind him and from the edge of the forest where Kaya had come to, they began their way back to her cottage.

***

Sitting in the deep recess of a high-backed leather covered chair, Kaya had curled her legs up underneath her and sipped at the yarrow tea Lizette had made for her. It was particularly strong and laced with honey that calmed her nerves and bought her a small measure of peace. It tasted as if there was something else in there too, but Kaya didn’t ask what, it could only have been another ingredient to add to her growing sense of calm. In the safety of her home in the main living room, Lizette had seated herself in a wooden chair opposite, placing her teacup next to the matching teapot on the small table in the centre of the room.

Kaya had explained what had transpired when the strange woman had locked eyes with her, how it felt as if everything that was had been ripped away and changed into the scene that she had found herself, stuck fast on the altar like an offering. If the hallucination had continued, if Lizette had not managed to wake her up from it, what would she have seen? It made Kaya shudder and her jaw clench. In the handful of seconds it had taken Lizette to open the portal and go through it, Jaycen had simply pushed Kaya through it too before going in last, making sure they weren’t being followed. Lizette estimated it to be hardly thirty seconds at best, yet to Kaya, it had felt like hours had passed. She still had a lingering headache, like when you slept too deeply for too long. Her skin felt as it though it had a residual stickiness to it, yet there wasn’t a spot of anything on her. It had all been in her mind, a torturing vision, a grotesque delusion.

Kaya wasn’t sure how else to explain how she felt, yet she had many questions which both Jaycen and Lizette were the source of her gained information, starting with Lizette. Whereas the mage sat opposite her, Jaycen kept guard around the perimeter of Kaya’s home, just in case.

When Kaya had asked the obvious “what in the world just happened?” Lizette had simply half shrugged. 

“One thing is obvious; the clearing is still active and being used for those rituals, almost a century later. I should have been better prepared when I discovered what those birds were and why they were there. This is my fault.”

“No,” Kaya replied, “it isn’t. There is no way any of us could have been prepared for that.” After a moment of thought, Kaya brought up her hallucination. “That woman, that’s _her._ The one that cursed Jaycen, isn’t it?”

Lizette didn’t immediately answer, instead chewing on her lower lip and taking a sip of her tea. “You will have to ask Jaycen, but I believe so.”

“Did you sense anything? Right before the werewolf appeared?” 

“Cold.” Lizette stared out the window of the living room. “Emptiness, like an ancient hollow of a tree, it was like nothingness given form. It was coming from the werewolf.”

“Who was he?” Kaya asked herself more than anything, but Lizette assumed she was asking her.

“I don’t know. Perhaps another cursed? When the witch cursed Jaycen, she didn’t choose to keep him by her side or anything like that. Although it’s a little muddy, it seems the moment she did her job she left and so did he. She left in the same way you saw her, bursting into a spray of blood.” Lizette drained her tea and huffed a laugh. “At the end of it all, the witch was simply ‘hired’ in a way. She came along, did what she had been bid to do and left. Perhaps she had some twisted sense of allegiance between her and her ‘employer’ and did nothing more than what was tasked. Who is to say she doesn’t have a werewolf as a pet and that one we saw was him?” 

Kaya sighed. It seemed likely that one with enough power to permanently change someone’s form could easily utilise it to their own advantage. The witch’s true power was obviously great, but still an unknown to all of them.

“I will have to do some research into some questionable things to get the answers we need, but it must be done.” Lizette’s face was as grim as her statement. 

“You can use destructive magic, is that not already a somewhat dark art?” Kaya questioned. 

“Perhaps to some extent. As with anything, it depends on what it’s used for. Magic of the flesh and blood, using it for your own gain and pleasure and bending the shapes or the wills of others is without a doubt, inherently _evil._ ”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t saying that you – ”

“I know, child, it’s alright.” Lizette cut her off before Kaya could finish. She knew the mage understood as everything about the use of magic was a mystery to Kaya. Over the years she had known Lizette, it had gradually become less so, but she was no mage. You were either born with the gift or you weren’t, it was as simple as that. 

Still, in the face of such power, Kaya felt very helpless indeed.

“If I met her again somehow, there is nothing I could do to stop her.” Admitting it out loud brought a confusing mix of anger, despair and frustration to bubble in her chest. Kaya didn’t have the abilities Lizette had or the strength and speed that Jaycen possessed. She wasn’t a fighter, she was a thinker. If the witch was in front of her right now, what could Kaya do against a being with such unearthly influence?

“It won’t come to that.” Lizette stated firmly. “Not on my time and certainly not on Jaycen’s.” Kaya hoped, with all that she could, that Lizette’s words were true. She sipped at her own tea, finishing it and setting the cup down and sitting up a little straighter.

“I hope so.” Kaya whispered her thoughts aloud in the space of the living room. 

Making the decision to stay with Jaycen for the next few days, Lizette eventually wished her well and left her to it. From the window of the kitchen, overlooking the front of the cottage and onto the quiet road, Kaya could see Jaycen prowling the edges of its dirt track. His head was low to the ground as he sniffed at it before he raised it back up and did the same to the air like he had done in the clearing. His eyesight was several times better than Kaya could ever hope hers to be. He was able to pick out shapes in the darkness long before she was and combining his keen sense of smell and impeccable hearing, there wasn’t much that could hope to get past him undetected.

For the first time in five years since living alone, Kaya didn’t feel safe by herself. She would forever be grateful that such a domain existed and was simply perfect for the unusual company she kept, especially since the desolate road was so less travelled that it allowed Jaycen to freely walk around the cottage as if he were patrolling his own territory in the forest. Yet today, it was that silence and solitude that the countryside offered that had Kaya feeling uneasy. She knew she was being a little paranoid; the witch surely didn’t know who she was specifically, but Kaya didn’t know how far her magic reached. Through simple eye contact, she had invaded Kaya’s mind and dragged her into a horrifying vision that had rendered her helpless. Who was to say that she hadn’t gathered all sorts of information about her while she was held in that dark place?

Gathering some supplies and a handful of books on old magic from her library, she met Jaycen outside and followed him back to his cave.

Announcing to the children that she would be staying there each night for the next few days had them elated. The signed to her the things they wanted to do; go for walks through the forest, look for early winter berries, play hide and seek, have her read books to them and even visit the pond clearing where she met Jaycen. Kaya laughed inwardly at the last one. She had told them that’s where they met but not the information that that was where they were _made_ , that was too much information to share that she kept to herself. The new normality of this part of her life was enough to distract Kaya from her torrid thoughts. Her nights were dreamless and empty, no blue eyes or pale skin showed themselves behind her closed eyelids or in the depths of her subconscious. She felt oddly at peace.

On the fourth day of staying with Jaycen, she watched the eldest of the four, Lucius, round up his siblings and lead the way out the cave. They were not allowed very far at the moment, father’s orders, but they were competent enough to travel a little way out into their territory on their own to give Kaya and Jaycen some time to themselves. As Kaya watched the four werewolves go, blowing a kiss to Torin as he spared her a glance back before disappearing out the mouth of the cave after his brothers, Kaya realised it was the early hours of the morning.

She was wrapped in several blankets as the morning air was now frigid enough to create a thin layer of frost over everything it touched before the rising sun began melting it. Kaya laid her head back down on the mishmash of pillows from her home and grassy mounds of earth that made of the cave’s floor, pulling the blankets up to her chin and feeling sleep tug her eyelids shut, luring her body into its prior state of relaxation.

It was too early to get up.

However, it obviously wasn’t too early for Jaycen to be awake.

Kaya could feel him at her back, his natural warmth to her was more than enough to chase away the coldness of the winter night without starting a fire. His breathing was steady enough that Kaya knew he was awake and she half heard, half felt him carefully prop himself up on one arm behind her. After several minutes he slowly, ever so slowly, he hooked one claw under the top of the blankets by Kaya’s face and cautiously pulled them back. The cool air graced over her exposed skin like a delicate breath. In her current position, mostly on her side with one arm tucked under her, Kaya couldn’t see Jaycen at all, which also meant he couldn’t see her face. Did he think she was asleep?

Remembering that she wasn’t wearing anything on her body apart from the smallest of undergarments on her most delicate lower parts, Kaya heard Jaycen sigh. It was a light sound, barely audible but she heard it. With her back completely to him and her mostly naked self on display, Kaya realised something; Jaycen genuinely thought she was _asleep._

Several seconds passed and he didn’t do a thing, but Kaya could feel those yellow eyes on her, appraising her form from behind. In a rush of sensation that went down her spine and clenched itself between her legs, Kaya played along. It had been a while, and realising Jaycen was simply admiring her was more than pleasing. Just as she thought he wasn’t going to do anything at all, she felt him shift slightly. He was being extremely careful, as not to ‘wake’ her, and Kaya had to suppress a grin lest her laughter burst forth and ruin everything. With her anticipation building in her belly, Kaya awaited what he would do next. Would he touch her while she ‘slept’? The thought of him doing so was incredibly arousing, so Kaya continued to play along.

She was a natural side sleeper, almost always waking up with one arm brought up under her head and the other pressed close to her chest. One leg was straight and the other bent, preventing her from completely rolling onto her front without readjusting two different limbs, but it was a position that left her behind very exposed. With what must be the same claw he used to remove the blankets covering Kaya, Jaycen utilised the same careful grace in pulling down the already loose garment over Kaya’s rear. 

Now she had to bite her lip and stifle a moan. Jaycen however, let out a very slow breath followed by the sound of a soft rustling that had Kaya wondering just what it was he was doing. The rustling quieted but it didn’t stop, persistent in its frequency. Jaycen’s soft exhales matched it, and suddenly Kaya realised just what it was he was doing.

He was touching himself, leisurely stroking himself while he gazed at Kaya’s naked body. Tremors of arousal ripped through Kaya, the lewd act of what was happening and the affect she clearly still had on Jaycen after all these years, made her feel _powerful._

She decided to idly shift in place, make a small noise of sleep to encourage Jaycen further and it worked. For a brief second, she felt the head of his cock touch the very top of her thigh, in the place before it connected to the rise of her ass. Kaya bit her lip, pretending not to notice the touch and realising just how difficult it was to stay still. Surely Jaycen could smell her arousal by now? If he did, he did not react to it in the way he usually did. Instead, he kept his teasing touch light and barely there to the point all Kaya could hear was his quiet but laboured breathing and the wet sound of his hand moving up and down his cock.

She shifted slightly again, another soft noise of sleep breaking free yet Jaycen did nothing further except quietly pleasure himself. She wanted him to touch her, to take it further, but on his assumption that she was asleep and not wanting to wake her, he seemed content to simply admire her from the short distance between them. Kaya was unsure how she could get him to make another move apart from waking up completely, so she opted for moving her leg higher up into an even more bent position which incidentally, exposed her further. She knew the roundness of her ass was on full display and she was most likely showing what hid just beneath and to her gratification, Kaya felt the light touch of Jaycen’s cock once again on the top of her thigh. This time, he didn’t pull back and continued that barely there touch further up and up.

Hands clenching into fists and lower lip being thoroughly gnawed on, Kaya felt Jaycen delicately rub the tip of his cock down between the crack of her ass and beyond to her exposed entrance which she could feel was dripping with her arousal. She heard him sigh once again, a soft smooth sound which made Kaya’s entire body relax further. At this moment, with her sexual frustration reaching its boiling point, she was done with the teasing. Kaya openly moaned and pushed back against Jaycen. The action made him freeze for a moment before he continued with more force with the realisation she was now awake.

Kaya said nothing, not calling to the fact she had been awake the entire time and instead rolling completely onto her front and using her forearms to push herself up a little. Kaya dragged all her hair over her right shoulder, raised her hips enough for Jaycen to get the hint and waited.

She didn’t have to wait long as he understood instantly, his presence behind her making her shudder with anticipation. Kaya felt the tip of one claw at the nape of her neck as Jaycen slowly eased the claw of that finger down the ridges of her spine. It graced over her skin, over each bump of bone, light but still enough pressure to surely create a little pink line on her pale skin. The claw continued down to where her back ended before gracefully arching over on her ass, taking its time to spread the teasing scratch from one cheek to another. The sharp pressure ended just as it got harder and was quickly replaced with Jaycen’s hot wet tongue that retraced the mark his claw had left.

It was somewhat how the faded mark over her shoulder had been left; Kaya had gotten too swept up in the moment and had fallen forward, face in the ground while Jaycen’s hand on her shoulder had slipped. He had gone to grab her again but instead accidently snagged a claw over her skin. It had bled a little, but wrapped in the blanket of endorphins that she had been in, Kaya didn’t notice until it was all over. Jaycen had taken great delight in licking the wound clean which then had subsequently started round two.

In her current state it was nothing but a hazy memory, yet the pleasurable pain made her recall it, just for a moment.

But now, Jaycen’s tongue had reached her nape. It had trailed up her spine, mixing its hot touch with his colder nose, a delightful twist of sensations that brought a soft cry from the depths of her chest. The moment it broke free, Jaycen lowered his head back down between her legs and pushed his tongue into her entrance. Kaya groaned at the sensation, pushing her hips back against him so he could get deeper. Her forearms came further up to support her weight as she raised her hips higher up to which Jaycen reacted by wasting no time.

He lifted himself up straighter and gripped Kaya’s hip with one hand while he used the other to rub his cock against the wetness of her core, pausing for only a moment before pushing inside. Kaya knew it had not been long enough for her body to forget Jaycen’s touch, it was a ridiculous notion to think so, but it didn’t make the feeling of his length any less big than it actually was. He carefully pushed himself inside, slowly enough for Kaya to get used to the feeling yet promptly to let her know he wasn’t in a ‘take it slow’ kind of mood this morning. Fighting the urge to get going immediately so as not to injure herself, Kaya stayed as still as she could, forcing her body to relax and accept all of Jaycen. She felt him groan over her shoulder as he lowered his head to the nape of her neck and one of his hands ran along her side to rest on her hip. The other soon joined it and he sat back up.

With clenched fists and nails pushing into the palms of her hands, Kaya made a small noise of frustration when she felt ready for Jaycen to move. He took the noise for the confirmation it was and pulled back out before thrusting back in. Pleasure sailed up her spine, igniting her nerve endings and pulling sounds of ecstasy from Kaya’s lips as Jaycen picked up the pace.

The sounds of their rough rhythm bounced off the walls of the cave, making it sound louder than it possibly was. When Jaycen pulled back Kaya was pulled back with him, each movement pushing her closer to the edge as hips smacked together. She could barely control the rising level of her voice as Jaycen gave little mercy and continued his short sharp thrusts. Kaya felt so full, the sensations building inside her and dragging her orgasm closer yet it was just out of reach. Their movements were hurried, a jagged age old cadence between two lovers that was rapidly reaching its peak. Kaya could feel the edge of Jaycen’s knot beginning to form just outside her body, catching on her rim like it always did and making her toes curl with the thought of it slamming home. 

She knew deep down he wouldn’t do it, not this time like the others, with all the new developments that the forest clearing brought up it simply wasn’t the right time to have more children. The bestial part of Kaya’s nature wasn’t quite as welcoming of those thoughts compared to the aforementioned rational side, as that desire to be knotted and bred pushed her body down and her hips up, back arching further. Kaya groaned at the force of Jaycen’s thrusts, feeling how close he was only helped to bring her closer still to her own limit. 

One of Jaycen’s hands rested between her shoulder blades and held her down, completely preventing Kaya from moving. The final act of semi-aggression made her gasp harshly and it didn’t take her long to crash over that line of bliss. Jaycen dragged out the moments it took for him to come, watching Kaya writhe and moan on his cock as pushed himself as far inside her as he could. Warmth spread inside her, a luscious feeling she had sorely missed before Kaya remembered how fleeting it was. As Jaycen pulled out of her, Kaya recalled he had not been deep enough to keep his essence truly inside her where it wanted to be and she could feel it run down her thighs. After all this time, she had to dig very deep into her mind to recollect just how it felt to be pinned beneath Jaycen with him knotted to her, to feel him in the deepest part of her body where no human man could ever reach.

She wanted it again, she realised. She wished for that feeling and everything that came with it in the long run but this time, she would be prepared. Could they really handle more pups? The days of their little ones waking up and nuzzling at her chest, hungry first thing in the morning, were long gone. Jaycen didn’t know how long their sons would stick around and if Kaya was still as fertile as she had been five years ago, that meant she could potentially carry up to another four. The thought of what chaos and mischief eight, intelligent werewolf offspring could do was a little terrifying.

Kaya was pulled from her inner thoughts as she felt Jaycen was already cleaning her up with a damp cloth. She hummed her gratitude at him before finding the energy to sit up and pull her undergarments back up and the blankets with her, wrapping them around her body once more. Jaycen spooned himself behind her, one strong arm coming to wrap around her waist and pull her close to him.

“I love you, my handsome wolf.” Kaya whispered in the growing light of the cave. It peeked through the small gaps in the ceiling as the sun began to rise.

Jaycen’s response was a very deep hum, a sound that was more like a purr than anything else Kaya could describe. It reverberated through her back where it was pressed to his chest, making a small but pleasant shudder course through her body. She was sure Jaycen felt it when his arm squeezed her a little. Sated, warm and comfortable, Kaya’s eyes fell closed and she returned to the peaceful empty embrace of sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaya's joy at her sons' newfound ability is cut short when the witch comes back for her.

Kaya was cleaning the pigeons’ aviary when she felt it, a sharp pain in her head, strong enough to make her gasp aloud and sink to her knees. There was no warning, no heads up before it was pulsing behind her eyes and spreading out to the back of her head. Yet it only lasted a couple of seconds before it disappeared as if it hadn’t been there at all. Standing back up and utterly confused, Kaya continued cleaning the aviary before moving on to the stable and then the front yard. It was a little after midday when she heard the tell-tale sound of hooves and carriage wheels. Looking out the window, she spied the courier making his way down the road to her house. He only came three, sometimes four times a week and always had a bit of gossip from the city. Kaya made sure to grab a carrot from the larder before heading outside to meet the courier.

There were a few different couriers that drove out this way, but always the same horse; a heavily built Shire named Rosie, her dark brown coat shining with a little sweat where the harness touched her skin, she was very tall and her shoulder was higher than Kaya’s head. A thick white blaze ran down the mare’s face and she whickered at Kaya as she approached. Snapping the carrot in half, the mare took it eagerly, chomping loudly on each piece of the vegetable.

“Afternoon, lass.” The courier, Kaya’s preferred one, was an ageing man with white hair and equally white stubble named Alfie. He climbed down from the carriage and headed to the back to lower the trapdoor and retrieve what he had for Kaya.

“Afternoon, Alfie. Anything exciting happening in the world?” Kaya asked as she followed him to the back of the carriage. 

“Well let’s see…” he rummaged around in a sack for a few moments before pulling out some papers for her and handing them over as he found them. “A bunch of new work for you by the looks of it, the general Erstweald newsletter…” he rummaged further, “some scrolls you requested from the library. Oh! And this.” Alfie tossed the sack back in the carriage and opened a different larger one to retrieve a single piece of paper. When Kaya inspected it, her jaw almost dropped. The mage council were due to be in the main city, the very same group that Lizette had once been involved with that were based to the north high up in the mountains. It was rare for them to come out, let alone visit the city, but as Kaya read the leaflet further, it appeared they were, of all things, recruiting. 

“Everything alright?” Alfie’s husky voice broke Kaya’s thoughts. He had the voice of a man who had smoked pipes all day, every day for most of his life. 

“Yes, everything’s fine.” Kaya smiled at him to try and put his concerned face at ease. “I was just…thinking how odd this is.” She waved the leaflet and her casual remark seemed to work on Alfie.

“You’re telling me!” He exclaimed. “I’m seventy-one years young later this year, lived in Erstweald all my life and I ain’t _never_ heard of the Emporium coming out of their castle, tower, cave, whatever it is they live in.” He flapped his hands for added affect, making Kaya chuckle at his enthusiasm. “Even my long dead parents, Gods rest them, had never seen that before, and they got into their nineties.” 

“Maybe that’s these why were made, to announce such an important event?” Kaya wondered.

“Bah, _important_ event. They’re up to somethin’ for sure. ‘Twas the King’s orders that these be given out to every household in the country, even those that like livin’ on the edge of it like yourself.” 

Kaya hummed thoughtfully. If the leaflets were going to everyone that meant Lizette would get one too.

“Is that all you have for me, Alfie?” 

“I believe so, lass. I’ll be back through in three days to pick anythin’ up if you have it. See you then!” He inclined his head a little as he shut the trapdoor on the carriage and made his way back up to his driving seat. Kaya patted Rosie on her neck before she waved Alfie off, watching him for a moment as he made his way further west before heading straight to her study to write out a quick message for Lizette. 

The mages of Erstweald had a permanent residence in the northern mountains. It was strategically placed, with vision of the area below from every side, yet the people who lived within it were rarely seen. As Alfie had said, entire generations could live and die without ever hearing them leave their home. Magic itself was widely used, most of it in such minor forms such as being able to levitate certain objects, light a candle or boil and freeze water, that it was barely worth trying to get to the Emporium to be accepted for study. Apparently they were, extremely selective when accepting students and as true magic ability in Erstweald was so few and far between, they didn’t ever seem to bother approaching the rest of the world to bolster their numbers. They also called themselves an “emporium” but they didn’t actually sell anything like the title suggested. It was rather that than anything particularly creative as to not scare people away.

Lizette hadn’t spoken much about her experience there or gone into much detail about how she left, although Kaya had a suspicion she had done something untoward. She didn’t truly know how such a powerful mage would be allowed to walk away with no problems and practically live like a normal person in her little apothecary shop.

She tied the parchment roll into its contraption to a pigeon’s leg and released the bird to the air, her gaze following it as it flew in the direction of the city until it was too far away to see. The sky’s usual blue was streaked with varying shades of grey as with every day the clouds threatened snow. They were becoming thicker and fluffier than they were in autumn and the wind had a constant bite to it. Any day now, Kaya thought. It was then the sharp pulsing pain ripped through her head again.

Gasping like she had done before, Kaya blinked hard several times in a feeble attempt to chase the pain away. She held onto the balcony railing with one hand and gripped the bridge of her nose with the other while it persisted for the handful of seconds before finally ceasing. Kaya drew in a deep breath when it stopped, an odd dizzy sensation making the world spin for a moment before it righted itself.

What was happening?

Kaya had almost forgotten all about it until she heard Lizette’s portal fizzle away on the dirt road two days later. She had just gotten up to get the door when Lizette knocked on it but the moment she stood from the chair at her kitchen table, the world spun and the headache ripped through her yet again. This time, Kaya fought through it as she staggered to her feet and knocked over a small stack of papers she had been working on as she did so. Kaya had to balance herself against the countertops for a moment, breathing hard and resisting the urge to either throw up or scream with the pain in her head. As she didn’t immediately open the door like usual, she saw a flicker of movement at the kitchen’s window where Lizette was peeking through.

Upon seeing her, with a flash of white and a _snap_ of the air like that of a whip cracking, Lizette teleported inside the cottage and was next to Kaya within seconds.

“Kaya! What’s wrong?” But Kaya could hardly get any words out apart from a pained groan, her knees gave out and she slid down the counter to the floor. Lizette’s hands grasping her shoulders was the only thing preventing Kaya from falling to one side.

Once again, just as quickly as the pain had come, it went. When she opened her eyes to see Lizette staring at her, Kaya explained what had happened.

“Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence but three times?” Lizette shook her head. “Three times is the enemy.”

“Am I getting sick?” Kaya asked her.

“I doubt it, you don’t feel sick.” It was statement that perhaps would have made more sense if it had come from Kaya herself, but with the way Lizette had pressed her hand against Kaya’s forehead and stared off into space as she did so, Lizette made the announcement with confidence. “Has anything else happened?”

Kaya shook her head, watching the mage carefully. “I swear if you prescribe me any more yarrow tea, I will drown you in it.”

“It really is the cure for most ills.” Lizette laughed in response before helping Kaya to her feet. The mirth on her face quickly turned serious when she spoke again. “If it happens another time, or if anything else happens, let me know as soon as you can.”

“I will.” Kaya replied firmly. She didn’t know how else to explain the sudden onset of pain to Lizette, or for how long it truly lasted. She never had the time to calculate the seconds that ticked by when all she could think about was when it would end.

Once they were both sitting in the living room comfortably did Kaya bring up the Emporium leaflet. Although Lizette did her usual stoic façade, an attempt to act indifferent to what was being presented in front of her, Kaya could see she was just as surprised as she was.

“Is there anyone you might know who still remains a part of the Emporium?” Kaya asked the mage. Lizette looked thoughtful for a moment, seeming to genuinely ponder the question.

“Perhaps only one.” It gave away everything and nothing at the same time. Kaya suspected that Lizette didn’t have many friends in general, let alone when surrounded by others of her kind. She was shrouded with a haughty arrogance when it came to her magic; everything she did was done with minimal effort and with little consequence to her and her daily life. Even after all this time, though Lizette had proven to Kaya to be no enemy of hers, Kaya still held the same level of caution she did the moment the door to her office in her shop had locked by itself and kept her from leaving. The moment she learned she had been with child.

When it came down to it, Lizette was a powerful ally, perhaps an even more powerful enemy and Kaya would do a lot before she became the latter of those two. Somehow, Lizette was alive well beyond her natural years. It was her most closely guarded secret and Kaya knew this without even having to ask. 

Everyone had their secrets, no matter how deep they went.

“What are they looking for?” Kaya broke the silence in an attempt to get some answers from Lizette in a subject they had hardly touched on.

“I…don’t know.” Lizette seem to whisper, as if afraid to admit the truth. “Something isn’t right though. Something feels…off.” Her words made Kaya shiver. 

“Will you get in touch with them?” She dared to ask.

Lizette looked at her sharply, eyes narrow and calculating before she finally broke the stare and looked elsewhere in the room, much to Kaya’s relief. Lizette could hold someone’s gaze like no other she had ever met. 

“Possibly.” The vague response gave Kaya her answer without her needed to press further. Of course Lizette would speak to the people she was so closely affiliated with at one point in her life. While she had been at the Emporium was also when she had encountered the woman who had been involved with Jaycen, yet her identity remained a mystery to Kaya even now. What was so secret about her, Kaya had no idea.

They talked for a little while longer and when Lizette left the same way she arrived, she left Kaya feeling no better than before. Something was going on in the world enough for the mages to come out of hiding; Lizette was positive their ‘recruiting’ was nothing more than a front for something more sinister. They never did anything without a reason after all and with no idea just how many mages would be in the capital, the only reasonable thing Lizette could do was go and investigate. Now, more than ever before, Kaya wished she had some of their ability. Anything to give her the necessary insight that Lizette was obviously feeling. Kaya’s inner turmoil was nothing more than intuition over magic ability, and it frustrated her, but she too could understand what Lizette meant when she said something was ‘off’.

As Kaya went about the next few days, she felt as if she were walking on eggshells. She laughed out loud to herself when she likened her feeling to how Jaycen must have felt when his suitor had told him that everything was fine after being told he couldn’t marry her. He had been honest with her and she shot him down. Was this how he felt, looking over his shoulder every few minutes to check? Each night Kaya went to sleep in her bed, she couldn’t shake the feeling she wasn’t alone, yet nothing happened. It felt as if someone was looking through her window or standing in the darkest corner of the room. Quickly, Kaya became hyperaware of every sound in the house. Every creak, every groan the cottage made had her head snapping in that direction, whatever she was doing paused while all her senses focused on the source of the noise.

It didn’t help that the weather got worse as the days turned into weeks; old buildings always complained in the wind. Despite that, Kaya often caught herself staring off into space, no matter what she was doing.

Standing in the stable with a net full of hay. Watering the plants on the front lawn. Quill hovering over the parchment. Watching water bubble for a bath. Eyeing her naked reflection in the mirror. 

Each time Kaya came back to herself, she gasped for breath like she had been held underwater until her lungs were ready to burst and inhale fluid instead of the air. The same liquid that kept so many creatures alive could take it away at a moment’s notice. Each time she caught herself staring idly at something only she could see, panic and fear rose in her throat, tightening her chest and threatening to break free. Her heart would race, sweat would bead on her brow and there was little Kaya could do to find comfort from the terror she felt in the core of her being that something was truly wrong with her. Her heart was a bird and her ribs were its cage.

Explaining it to Jaycen didn’t make her feel any better either. She could feel his concern and worry bleeding through his emotions and into her own and although she understood them, she didn’t know how to block them out. They simply doubled her anxiety. To clear her head, Kaya headed out by herself to the pond clearing where they had first met. The water held a thin layer of ice, trapping the lily pads and other aquatic life underneath its cold embrace. The ground itself was equally as frozen as the grass crunched noisily under her feet and the freezing air bit at the tips of her ears and nose. Kaya was well prepared for winter with her clothing and fur lined boots, but she could still feel it seeping through her pores to chill her bones.

Although it looked very different in the winter, this was still their special place. Her and Jaycen’s, nobody else’s.

The boulder she often sat on was still there of course, its dark grey surface a pale white where the frost covered it with tiny icicles. The robust trunks of the trees were largely free of winter’s touch at their base, but the higher they climbed the more it got a hold of them. Their long twisting branches were completely free of leaves now, the last of them to fall had fused to the ground under the layer of frost much like the lilies on the pond. They were like fingers.

 _Long_ fingers.

 _Pale_ fingers.

_Attached to a pale arm wrapped in a thin piece of cloth._

Kaya shook her head, sinking down to her knees at the frozen water’s edge. The awful image of the witch was still firmly present inside her head and it refused to leave. Without warning, Kaya felt the back of her nose grow hot, her vision blurred and a sob caught itself in her throat.

“What’s wrong with me?” She whispered, voice low and somewhat hoarse as if she had been crying for hours instead of a meagre handful of seconds. She felt miserable, unable to understand what was causing her frequent bouts of head pain and why those ghastly images of the hallucination would not leave her mind. The tears came faster then and the first time in a long time, Kaya cried.

She didn’t know how much time had passed. It was getting on in the afternoon when she had left Jaycen’s cave and the sky was now darkening as the sun headed west, turning the sky a mix of pale pinks, hazy purples and soft blues. The wispy clouds were streaked with gold highlights as they caught the last bits of daylight, bolstering their thickness now they had nothing standing in their way. Kaya watched in fascination, noticing that if she paid attention to it, the sun seemed to set much quicker than she realised. Wiping her eyes as often as she could to avoid any tears potentially freezing to her already delicate skin, she was about to stand when she heard a noise behind her. A footstep, a barely there touch of something on the ground yet strong enough to make the frosty earth crunch underneath it.

Twisting in place, fear gripped at Kaya’s gut colder and deeper than any frost ever could. Her eyes searched the darkness between the trees, waiting in horror as her mind conjured images of the hideous white werewolf with his disfigured mouth emerging from the treeline. Or worse, the witch herself come to torment her some more. As the seconds passed and nothing happened, Kaya’s alertness faded a little before a bush rustled, causing it to spike once more. 

“Who’s there?” Hating how tight and afraid her voice sounded, her breath coming out akin to steam before dissolving in the air. Kaya was ready to spring to her feet and run at the first sign of something unsightly revealing itself before what actually was hiding came out of its hiding place.

It was Torin.

Relief rushed through Kaya like she had jumped into a warm bath. Realising that it was still incredibly obvious that she had been crying, she sniffed and wiped her eyes some more before beckoning Torin to her. He came easily, pacing over on all fours to sit as close to her as possible but without getting onto her lap like he usually did. 

“What’s wrong, little one?” She asked him. He tilted his head at that, looking so much like his father in that moment it made Kaya blink hard before a smile broke out across her face. “I’m fine, just needed a moment.” Kaya rubbed her eyes again and kept the smile on her face as she regarded Torin. He didn’t look very convinced.

Kaya noticed his dark auburn fur was a little wet on his chest and stomach, a couple of areas even had some fur stuck together with little chunks of ice. It was prevalent on his arms too and there was even frost on his muzzle. It was obvious to Kaya then that he had been trailing her, following her scent like the wolf he was with his head to the ground, sniffing along it as he followed her scent before locating her here. He was too short in stature to properly avoid the cold touch of the earth’s long grass when he walked on all fours and as a result, it had practically drenched his underside. He had to be freezing!

Kaya quickly pulled him to her, wrapping her arms around his small body as he finally got comfortable on her lap. They stayed that way for several minutes, tiny sniffles and hiccups coming from Kaya as the sadness in her heart left her and was replaced with Torin’s natural warmth.

“We should head back, it’s getting very dark.” Kaya went to move but Torin held fast. He lifted his head and lightly pushed his cool nose to her cheek before turning the gesture into a full on press of his head into the crook of her neck. Kaya was hit with a huge rush of affection that for a moment, she felt she could cry again but for a different reason. She felt Torin make a small sound in his throat, almost as if he were clearing it, and he raised his head to look at Kaya, drawing in a breath;

“Please don’t cry, mother.”

A voice, light, delicate and childlike, emanated in the stillness of the pond clearing. The words were carefully formulated, spoken a little slowly to make sure they were pronounced correctly and were delivered without fault. Everything in Kaya felt like it stopped for a moment, even her heart. She stared back at her youngest son, a small auburn coloured werewolf with green eyes like hers, and was momentarily lost for words.

Torin stared back, a sad look in his beautiful eyes, the expression on his face was wrong for one so young and it was that realisation that brought Kaya back to herself, that she was the one who was causing it.

“You…you can speak?” She whispered. 

He nodded. “I can.”

“How?” For a third time now, Kaya felt like crying with yet again a different reason. This time, it was of joy. She _knew_ , that if any of her children would eventually speak, Torin would be the first. Her feeling was correct, and Kaya could have yelled in triumph.

“I’m not sure. It happened this morning.” 

“What? Only this morning?” 

“Yes.” As if it was that simple.

“Do your brothers know?”

“Only Ozias.” The third youngest as it were, possibly the reason that Torin was closest to him out of all three of his siblings. Kaya tried to wrap her head around what was happening. While she had been worrying about what was going on with her, Torin had been doing the same with himself.

“So you just tried to speak and it worked?” She questioned. Torin tilted his head again, thoughtful.

“Ozias pounced at me when I wasn’t looking and I fell backwards. It hurt a bit so I said ouch. I thought of the word inside my head first, but instead I spoke it out loud.” He seemed to shrug off his pondering look before looking at Kaya as if he was only just seeing her for the first time. “But now I can speak with you, mother.” He was elated, overjoyed. Kaya could feel his happiness as if it were her own and it pushed any remaining negative thoughts from her mind.

“This is amazing!” She followed his lead with his delight. “We have to tell your father and brothers when we get back to the cave.”

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Torin leapt from her lap and practically bounced on the spot with his excitement, barely able to contain it. His voice was clearly that of a child, but it didn’t match his physical age, much like his mind and general behaviour. Technically, he was only five years old, yet the way he acted and processed information gave the inclination that he was at least double that mentally and emotionally. As a result, his voice matched it too. Although soft and somewhat adorable, it held a confidence from someone who knew exactly what was going on. It suited him, Kaya thought, even though to an outsider it might seem out of place.

***

One after the other, the voices of the children manifested. Although it didn’t happen in the order they were born, which clearly irritated Lucius, the eldest, just a little bit. It happened in completely the reverse order; Ozias was next just two days after Torin spoke followed by Flint another two days after him. Lucius, becoming increasingly frustrated, was finally gifted with a voice five days after Flint. Kaya could hardly contain her exuberance. The fact that now all four of them were speaking had her infinitely proud and she wished, not for the first time, that she could tell more people about it that weren’t just Lizette. Was this how parents felt when their human children started walking or talking? It simply had to be.

Her joy in their newfound gift was tainted a little however when one night, in the darkness of the cave, Kaya was just about to fall asleep when she felt Jaycen sigh behind her. She rolled over to face him, one hand carding through his soft fur on the side of his face, over his cheek. 

“What’s wrong?” She whispered to him, mindful that the children were asleep just a few feet away. Jaycen shook his head and Kaya could just about make out his eyes in the blackness, downcast and sombre. She didn’t speak again, she didn’t have to, when ever so slightly, a warmth in her chest had her gasp a little. Jaycen’s emotions; strong and radiant just like hers, he shared her feelings of bliss at their children finally speaking but there was something else there, something acidic in the initial pleasant wave she felt from him. It was like seeing a perfectly blue sky with only one cloud, a ripple in an otherwise still lake. It took Kaya a few moments to realise what it was; jealousy. 

Jaycen barely filtered it across to her, but Kaya caught it. Of course he was proud that his children were gifted with speech, what parent wouldn’t be? It was just another example of their genetics matching to create the ideal offspring, a perfect blend of human and beast. But at the end of it all, he was envious of their talent simply because he couldn’t join the conversation.

“Oh, Jaycen.” Kaya pulled him to her, burying her face in his chest and inhaling the scent of the forest that he carried with him. “If it’s the last thing I do, I will keep searching for a way to help you, to change you back. There has to be a way.” Kaya poured all of her strength into that statement to him, although he still looked unsure. “I _promise_ you.” She made him look at her while she spoke, voiced hushed but as confident as she could muster. Jaycen simply nodded.

The following day, it finally snowed.

The clouds had been gathering thicker and looked more ominous than they ever had before until they could hold their quarry no longer. It fell slowly at first in large heavy flakes that gradually covered everything in a sugary dust, before picking up its pace as the clouds above relented. With a breeze not strong enough to scatter it around, within the hour there was a blanket of snow on the ground at least two feet deep. Kaya watched from her kitchen window that overlooked the front of her house. It was late in the night and the sparse lamps lining the road outside were barely visible in the darkness that was supported by the thick clouds. It blocked out the moon, casting no shadows on the whiteness of the once green open space surrounding the cottage.

For some reason, Kaya couldn’t stop staring out the window. Several candles around the kitchen flickered, the only source of light in the gloom of the kitchen. She wasn’t tired so she wasn’t in bed. She wasn’t hungry so she hadn’t eaten at dinner. She didn’t know or care to recall how long she had been standing by the sink, staring outside like she was looking for something, waiting for something. A tiny flare of pain behind her eyes made Kaya flinch, yet did not distract her enough to make her do anything else but _look_. Instead, Kaya felt relaxed, a smooth sense of calm washing over her as she regarded the lands around her home. 

In the distance, yet close enough to see, Kaya spied a soft blue glow. It was just in the opposite field, on the other side of the road from the cottage. It swirled over the snow, not touching it, just hovering as it glided with the ease of a bird built for soaring on the thermals. The snow continued to fall around the light, but never on it as it floated closer.

It glided across the road, through the stone wall of the front lawn to form an elegant shape of a woman.

She was pale, she was thin and despite her almost complete nakedness, she appeared untouched by the cold. Long almost white hair fell in waves around her, as if she were underwater and not in the countryside that was held in the depths of winter. Kaya eyed the woman, who still hovered above the ground. She felt a sense of familiarity within her at the sight of her face, but she couldn’t place it. When she locked eyes with those set in a face of such beauty, she caught her breath. Kaya’s confusion was washed away like waves over the shore. Without hesitating, Kaya headed for the front door.

The candles in the kitchen went out.

The blast of cold air that hit Kaya in the face as she opened the door went unnoticed, as did the icy touch of the snow on her bare feet. There was no chill in her bones and her body, clad in a long sleeved linen shirt and trousers, was just as unaffected by the cold as the woman in front of her. She held out one thin arm, hand reaching out like an offering to Kaya, beckoning her to take it. 

Kaya did.

The moment her hand touch the woman’s, everything faded around her. The cottage, the front garden, the snow covered hills, everything that was seemed to melt into a darkness so harsh that Kaya couldn’t see through it. The only thing that was visible was the strangely beautiful woman who seemed to glow from the inside out with a pale blue, like the sky in the early hours of the dawn. The pain in Kaya’s head flared up again, making her wince. She let go of the hand she was holding as it became hotter to the touch, as hot as the pain forcing her eyes closed. Kaya opened her mouth to scream but could barely get a sound out as the air became stifling. It was hard to breathe in and Kaya felt she would suffocate unless she could taste fresh air on her tongue. Compelling her eyes to open, Kaya realised she wasn’t at home. She wasn’t in her cottage with its warmth and its familiarity. She wasn’t surrounded by books and parchments or her pigeons or even the house ferns that she was sure Lizette had enchanted to grow a vibrant green as if they were planted in the ground itself. None of her things were anywhere to be found at all.

In front of her, less than six feet from her, was the stone altar of the forest clearing. 

The sky was the same ugly mix of red and black that it had been the last time she had been here, so was this again in her mind? It was strangely both dark and light, the hidden sun pushing its beams as best it could around the edges of the black clouds that occupied the sky. No snow had fallen here but the air was cold, like it always seemed to be in the clearing, and Kaya shivered realising she wore nothing on her feet and the clothes she did have on were not suited to winter at all. Kaya spun around on the spot, looking for anything and everything. How did she get here? Why was she here yet again?

Pain pulsed behind her eyes once more, almost sending her to her knees if it wasn’t for the hushed whispering that suddenly began all around her, drawing her attention. Women, dressed in thin white robes and pale skinned, began emerging from the trees. Some of them got their garments caught on branches as they moved past the trees, yet they didn’t break their iron stare on Kaya as they wrenched them free without a second thought. Kaya was hit with the memory of the naked women surrounding her in her hallucination, yet these women looked completely different. They were clothed, bore no strange markings in blood on their skin and were staring at her as if she was the sun come down from the sky itself.

Fear gripped at Kaya in her gut, it flowed through her veins like a thousand icy needles that speared into her heart. She had once read that humans generally had three behaviours towards an event which made them afraid; fight, flight or freeze. At this moment, with the women now standing just several feet away from her in a circle, Kaya could do nothing but the latter of those three. There were at least ten of them if she had to count and they blocked any exits that might have briefly been. Looking at each of their faces in turn, Kaya realised they all looked Erstwealdian. They were roughly her height, similar in her age, all equally attractive with their hair of varying shades of light blonde to the darkest of brown. Lighter skinned with defined jawlines, short noses, arching brows and almond shaped eyes; these women were most definitely the kin of her country. One of them, a brunette with wonderfully blue eyes and thin lips, stepped forward.

“It’s you,” her mellifluous voice carried to Kaya’s ears in a whisper, as if she was uttering a secret. “You’re finally here.” The woman held out her hand as if to touch Kaya before pulling back, making Kaya flinch away from her.

“Who are you?” Kaya asked the woman in front of her but inclined her head around to aim the question at all of them. However, the woman didn’t answer and instead she only smiled slightly, the starry-eyed look of her awe remaining in her eyes. Kaya fought off her rising panic as the women continued to stare at her, saying nothing but quietly whispering in each other’s ears. What were they saying? They were speaking the same tongue, yet it sounded like a foreign language to Kaya when she strained her ears enough. “What do you want with me? How do you know who I am?” Trying different questions that might get her answers, Kaya waited. The woman who had first spoken looked back around the group slowly.

“You have done what nobody thought they could do.” She stated as if that was the answer for everything, yet it gave Kaya nothing.

“And what’s that?” 

“You bred with _him._ ” The woman replied.

“…What?”

“You bred with the Cursed One.” It was said like a name. It took Kaya a few moments to realise what the woman was talking about.

Jaycen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Once, twice, three times..." quote by Ian Fleming (1908-1964)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lizette meets with an accomplice and dabbles in questionable magic to get some answers, but is she too late?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for the first time, we switch to Lizette's POV for this chapter. I found it really exciting and a little challenging to write from her perspective as I didn't want her to come off as "god-like" in her abilities, but she has lived a very long time and has gained some exceptional power.
> 
> If it was a terrible idea to switch it up, even though it's too late now, just let me know anyway so I don't do it again xD

The hum of the capital was as strong as ever despite the harsh direction the weather had taken. Life buzzed in every corner of the city; it was both in the walls and behind them, in the highest towers and the deepest cellars, in the brightest halls and the darkest of alleyways. It throbbed and pulsed like an exposed heart in the palm of her hand and Lizette found herself having to concentrate very hard to block it all out. She couldn’t hear thoughts like some others she had met, but she could feel the ebb and flow of life itself nonetheless. Usually, it was like a placid whirr of a beehive going about its business. 

Today, it was like a kicked hornet’s nest.

Lizette could _feel_ the tension in the air. It was a hesitant energy, an uncertain energy that was pounding with a viscous mix of fear, curiosity and contempt. Its cause could only be one thing; magic.

Ever since she first arrived in Erstweald all those years ago, Lizette could sense the general dislike of magic before she even saw that negativity happen in an act of violence. It made sense that the mages had separated themselves from the rest of society in their mountain tower far to the north, but it had only made things worse. Adding the fact that they hardly ever left it was the cherry on the top of the proverbial cake. Now they were considered recluses, degenerates, practisers of dark and evil magic because nobody governed them but themselves. Lizette had heard many a questionable thing in her years of life in this country and many of them made her scoff. Unless things really had drastically changed since she left the tower, the people of Erstweald would choke on their tea if they saw the mages they thought as generally dishonourable people actually spent most of their time reading and studying ancient scrolls. 

The city’s main square was just up ahead, a huge space of open grey cobblestone with an elaborate fountain in its centre. To enter it, one had to pass underneath a marble archway engraved with the names of heroes past, their memory of life nothing but a carving in solid stone to remember them by. Exotic plants had wrapped around the columns supporting the archway before spreading out around the walls that surrounded the square in its entirety until it looked like they were growing out of them. It wasn’t possible, Lizette thought to herself. Erstweald would never be so prude as to show off magic in such a way when they openly despised it.

Despite the taste of disdain on her tongue, basic magic ability was present in the air. The general population had some small measure of it; basic levitation, being able to light a fireplace with a snap of their fingers, freezing a bowl of water as if it had been sitting in the wintery embrace of nature all night long. The city square seemed to be the only place it was openly displayed. 

A man dressed in brightly striped clothing, balanced himself on a thin wire several feet off the ground. He held three torches that had yet to produce a flame, but with a single blink of his eyes, they ignited. The small crowd that had gathered gasped in surprise, growing in size as more people stopped to watch the display. With his left leg raising straight behind him, his right leg began to bend harshly, thigh muscles bunching under the strain of both supporting his weight and keeping balance on the wire that his toes curled around as best they could. It was a phenomenal feat of strength that had Lizette raising her eyebrows in appreciation.

As he reached the position he wanted to be in, he started juggling the torches, much to the delight of the crowd. As he stood back up, the fire on the torches grew in intensity before exploding into a small burst of blue, sparkling and crackling in the air. The man then proceeded to rush ahead to the end of the wire to the safety of a wooden block it was attached to, and somersaulted backwards to the ground, knees bent. A perfect execution of his skill.

The pleased crowd clapped and cheered, coming forward to hand over silver coins that he placed in a leather pouch.

Lizette had to shake her head. Magic was frowned upon except when it was used for entertainment. She had heard of such displays in the royal palace itself, where the king and queen of Erstweald held magic in the same regard except for when they wanted it for something. The irony was like salt in a wound that would never truly heal.

Walking on and further in, several vendors seemed to have a near permanent setup, haggling their wares for any profit they could gain. The winter months brought suitable goods to the public as people only spent their coin when they absolutely had to. Things like seasonal meats and vegetables, leather boots and gloves, hats and coats made from the furs of hunted animals and delicacies in the forms of candied apples and roasted chestnuts. It made the air smell of the very season of winter itself, pleasant to Lizette in a way that only Erstweald could produce. There was no snow and biting winds in her homeland of Suryntha, only an endless summer. Kaya would hate that.

Before Lizette could get too lost in her thoughts of home, she felt the tug of a particularly strong thread of magic. It was like catching her sleeve on a door handle in the way it made her turn in its direction, towards the ornate fountain and the sparkling waters the flowed from it. Winding her way through the bustle of people, the fountain came into full view and although there were many people around it, children splashing each other with the frigid water, elders tossing a silver coin in for good luck, there was but one man that Lizette truly saw for what he really was. The tug of magic grew stronger, a scent in her mind and the back of her nose like strong cinnamon enough to make her clear her throat and the man turned, entrancing hazel eyes staring straight at her. 

She came to stand next to him, the power he held within him radiating from him in invisible waves that only she could see. Any mage worth their salt would have flinched at the feel of it, but the people of Erstweald with so little magic ability, simply passed him by. 

“Lizette. Nice to see you.” He spoke softly but loud enough over the hum of the city to be heard. He had always been a gentle spoken man.

“You too, Gwyn.” She replied. Dressed in a heavy, long brown coat, dark chestnut slacks the same colour as his hair and sturdy leather boots, Gwyn blended in perfectly with what he called “the ungifted”, and it was proven by the way nobody paid him any mind. She liked Gwyn for that purpose, for his simplicity and ability to be nothing but straightforward, yet he didn’t hold her in the same regard.

Gwyn was the son of Erik; a comrade to her during her time in the royal service of the king. Gwyn’s father had stood by Lizette when they investigated the disappearances of people on the marsh trade routes, had saved her hide numerous times throughout her training and most importantly, shed blood like she did on the day they encountered Jaycen. Despite how powerful Erik was, he was still slain by Jaycen in the enraged state they had found him in and Gwyn, still young at the time, had never truly gotten over it. Perhaps he blamed her for his father’s death, a boy will always hold their father in the highest regard compared to a relative stranger. Why Jaycen had spared her that day, she will never understand. However, she often wished that someone else could have survived with her. Erik had always had her back.

Gwyn looked like him with his chestnut hair, rich hazel eyes, slightly curved nose and a strong jawline – he looked far younger than he actually was. Like his father, he inherited his abilities and had let nothing stop him from reaching the top. The mage council were lucky to have one among them who was so interested in upholding their morals.

Gwyn jerked his head to his right, indicating for Lizette to follow him which she did. She had sensed when the mages had left their tower and began making their way down to the city before the flyers announcing their presence began circulating. The royal family had welcomed them in, as they always did, and they were free to roam around so long as they did nothing untoward. To Lizette, their presences were like torchlights in the darkness, glinting at her, letting her know that they were there. Gwyn’s was like a bonfire threatening to rage out of control but never did.

Lizette followed him through the streets that led back out of the main square, the scents of hot chocolate and roasted nuts following close behind. They were real flavours of the world, not like the ethereal one that Gwyn produced. They say a fox cannot smell its own scent; Lizette wondered if she did the same thing unconsciously and perhaps Gwyn could sense it, but it certainly wasn’t the time to ask. Right now, Gwyn had reached the front door of an inn off the main street running through the city. It was a weathered building, its stone walls having seen many seasons thrash against it.

“I have a room upstairs, we can talk there.” Gwyn opened the front door, not bothering to hold it for Lizette who followed him in. She watched as he inclined his head to the receptionist behind the counter, a petite blonde woman who blushed at the gesture, and followed Gwyn up the main stairs. His room was simple and efficient, as was he, it suited him perfectly. Lizette remembered some of the other mages preferred a much more decadent approach to trivial things, herself included if she had to admit it, but not Gwyn. Never Gwyn.

Lizette took the offered seat at a small wooden table in a tiny kitchenette at the far end of the room as Gwyn locked the door behind him, fist closing in front of the handle as whatever warding spell he created to not be disturbed was set in place. The other end of the room housed a bed, two cabinets on each side and a thin wardrobe as high as the ceiling itself. Gwyn quickly busied himself making a pot of tea, ignoring the growing awkward silence that began to form in the air. Lizette stayed quiet, knowing Gwyn would speak when he was ready. He removed his coat, revealing a white cotton shirt underneath and seated himself opposite Lizette when the tea was ready.

“So, are you still tricking people into buying bizarre concoctions of raven’s feather and coffin dust?”

“I’m not tricking anyone. I’ll have you know that everything I make is perfectly legitimate.”

“Of course it is.” Gwyn took a sip of his tea, watching her over the rim of the cup.

“You didn’t bring me here to talk about what I’ve been doing all this time.” Lizette deadpanned. Gwyn eyed her with a terse look.

“Indeed. Alright then, tell me what you’ve felt.” Lizette knew what he was referring to without needing him to explain. The moment she had arrived in the clearing with Kaya, she could feel a shift in the air yet she sensed nothing physical in the area. She recalled the way the cold had tried to get right behind her eyelids, making her blink hard. She had to force the breath out from her lungs like it was catching on something on its way back out. Something had been there in the clearing recently enough that there was leftover magic in the air, like a red wine stain on a white dress; it might fade but it would never really go away. It was the exact same feeling she had felt when she stepped foot in that clearing longer ago than she liked to remember.

When Lizette didn’t immediately answer, Gwyn tried again. “Why is this happening now, after all this time?”

“Because it’s the same person as before.” Lizette shrugged. She had to choose her words carefully lest she give away a secret she did not want to share. Like her, Gwyn was not a telepath, but that didn’t stop him from being so naturally astute. 

“And how can you be so sure?” He asked.

“It’s the same bone chilling sense of dread. I felt it all those years ago, so did your father.” At the mention of him, Gwyn stiffened a little.

“He once explained to me what the rising of power feels like. He said it’s like hearing your name whispered and carried on the wind with the way it constantly makes you look over your shoulder. You start to feel it in the air no matter where you go, you cannot escape it.”

“No.” Lizette shook her head. “It’s everywhere. The problem is, I’m not sure what to do about it. I’m not sure what to do about _her._ ”

“You are absolutely certain it’s the same witch as before?” Gwyn’s head tilted a little but his eyes didn’t move, pinning Lizette in her seat with his intimidating stare. 

“Do you doubt me, Gwyn?”

He paused for a moment. “No.” _Liar_ , she thought. “Do you know why she has returned?” Oh, Lizette had more than a few ideas as to why the ancient cultist leader was back in town, but how could she explain them to Gwyn without giving away Kaya and Jaycen? At her lack of instant answer for a second time, Gwyn frowned. “A pause that says you know exactly what’s going on.” He sipped his tea again, eyes staying in place on her as his head dipped to drink from the cup.

“I cannot reveal the whole truth to you this time, Gwyn. You will just have to trust me.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

Lizette looked at him, then down to her own cup of tea, finally deciding to drink it.

“The witch is back, Gwyn. For whatever reason she is here, we have to work together to come up with a way to stop her.”

“The reason she is here, is to rally women into creating more of those… _things_.” He spat the last word out like it tasted sour on his tongue.

“Werewolves.” Lizette stated.

“Yes, _werewolves_. That thing you failed to kill that butchered my father is one of that bitch’s little creations.” Gwyn practically hissed at her, making Lizette raise an eyebrow at him. “Yes, I read your book. It was extremely difficult to find a copy of it, but I found one. I liked the way you didn’t mention anyone’s names apart from that cursed creature. Was that to spare everyone’s feelings?” Lizette didn’t reply, she simply stared at Gwyn with growing irritation. He was dangling bait in front of her and if she took it, she would lose.

“I tried my best that day, Gwyn. We did not expect to find Jaycen and we fought for our lives. If I could go back, I would change places with Erik in a heartbeat.”

“Don’t speak his name to me like you truly cared and don’t you dare lie to me about going back ‘if you could’. You thanked all the Gods in the stars that day that you survived and had the nerve to make it into a storybook! I know what happened that day only because of you, writing it in third person like it didn’t even happen. Nobody remembers my father for what he did, it’s as if he never existed.”

“I didn’t come here to argue about your father, Gwyn. We have already discussed it many times over.” Lizette bit her tongue on further words, refusing to trade insults on who should have lived and who should have died that day.

“You’re right.” He huffed, sitting back in his chair. “I have reason to believe that creature is still out there.”

“What?” 

“The werewolf, the cursed one.” Gwyn’s refusal to speak Jaycen’s name was understandable.

“Why do you think that?”  
“It’s just a guess, but maybe she has come back to collect her creation?” Gwyn didn’t know how close to the mark he really was. But it wasn’t Jaycen that the witch was here for.  
“We would have heard about Jaycen’s presence in the area by now. He’s a mindless beast, after all.” Lizette tried to steer away Gwyn’s focus from Kaya’s werewolf partner, but he persisted.

“From my research,” he began “shape changing is permanent. Her pet werewolf is the only example in history of such a thing being performed as a curse. Shape-changing is already a rare gift, but permanently altering someone’s shape? That takes skill in the darkest of arts. It goes to the places we do not go.” Gwyn ran a hand through his hair. “If you do not tell me the reason why the witch’s power has reformed, then I will have to figure it out for myself.”

He was offering Lizette a way out, a way to explain herself. But how could she? Jaycen would be hunted down, as would his children and likely Kaya too. 

“Her power feels like it is searching, stretching out, looking for something. You feel that, do you not?” She asked. Gwyn nodded. “Then she has yet to find what she is looking for. If she had found Jaycen, she would likely send him to attack humans, or least be the cause of another bunch of disappearances.”

“History repeating itself.” Gwyn whispered, almost to himself as he looked out the window across the room. “Do you know what happens if you try to break a curse?”

Lizette knew, but shook her head, watching Gwyn silently.

“You die. It’s as simple as that.”

“But does the curse break?” She queried and Gwyn looked at her sharply. 

“You’re dead, what difference does it make if the curse is broken?”

“What I mean is, you’re cursed to another form that was never your own and breaking said curse will kill you. If you break it, by whatever means to do so, do you change back to your original form? Or do you die as the being you were changed into?” 

Gwyn looked thoughtful. “I…don’t know. There has never been a case of such a thing happening. The dead cannot share their story.” It was true, but that didn’t mean it was likely many a person had tried, in desperation. “Where is that idea going?” Gwyn’s voice broke Lizette’s thoughts. “Don’t tell me you think that creature can be saved?”

“Of course not.” It was a lie through her teeth, but Lizette had lied many times in her life. For a moment, it didn’t look like Gwyn believed her, but he didn’t challenge it.

“Alright, so I say the witch has found him, you say the witch is still looking. Regardless of what we agree or disagree on, she can only be here to continue what she was doing almost a century ago. She wants to make more…werewolves.” Another word that was acid in his mouth, Lizette didn’t realise his hatred for them ran quite as deep as it seemed to.

“I do believe so.” Lizette agreed with him on this one. There was no other reason that she could be in Erstweald once more from wherever she had been all this time. There was nothing else here for her.

“All the time we are doing nothing, she could be out there rallying woman for her twisted charade.” Gwyn’s lip curled in disgust. “We cannot let any more of those blasted creatures come into existence.” 

Lizette nodded slowly. Once more, Gwyn didn’t know how close he was to hitting the bullseye with his arrow. What would he do if he knew what Kaya had done? The _blasted creatures_ he despised so much had multiplied in his time in the tower, and their father was the one he hated most of all.

“So what do we do?” Lizette asked, curious to see what Gwyn might be planning. 

“I will speak with the council members tonight. The king and queen have invited us to attend some ridiculous dinner at the palace, so when we are finished, we will discuss what to potentially do.” He drained his tea, pouring himself a second cup and refilling what little Lizette had drank without her asking him to.

“I see.” Was all Lizette said, looking down at her hands in her lap. It did not give her much to go on.

“But after that?” Gwyn hadn’t finished. “After that, I’m going to the clearing.”

Lizette’s head snapped up. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m going to the clearing.” Gwyn repeated.

“Do you even know where it is?”

“No, but you do. You’re going to lead me there.”

“I am?” This was the worst case scenario Lizette could imagine. Perhaps for the first time, her knowledge of something was playing itself against her.

“Yes, you are. That’s why we are all here.” The ‘we’ was referring to were all the mage council that had come to the city. They had all felt the change in the air, the kiss of evil in the veins that the witch had, perhaps inadvertently, made her presence known. If she was as powerful as she seemed to be, surely she had to feel how many mages were actually held up in Erstweald? Or perhaps she was just that arrogant that she didn’t care? If that was the case, Lizette wondered if that egotism might be the only chink in her armour, if she had flaws at all.

“It will take me a little while. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been there.” Another lie to add to the pile, yet Gwyn was finally with her, nodding his understanding.

“Of course, I understand. Please have some semblance of haste though, this matter is of great importance not just to the mages, but to all of this country.”

“I doubt creating werewolves in the fashion they do is instantaneous, Gwyn. Even if it takes me time to find the clearing and even longer to find the witch, it’s unlikely any further wolves will just suddenly appear. The ones that do, if any, may have already existed for years like Jaycen himself.”

“I suppose.” Gwyn didn’t seem entirely convinced but he didn’t question Lizette further. Their conversation finally shifted to something more light hearted; what the mages had been doing with their time in their unnaturally long lives. It made her wonder how old Gwyn was now and what method he was using to achieve a longer life. There were so many ways, after all.

She didn’t ask, it didn’t matter.

When she finally left Gwyn’s company, the sun had just started to set. Hurrying into the nearest quiet alley, she pulled a portal from the air which lead to her shop and stepped through it, finding herself in its centre. Since Kaya had initially tidied it up back when she was killing time before giving birth, Lizette had managed to keep it in much the same way that Kaya had left it. The vines that grew up the walls and through into the wooden panels that made up the second floor were as ubiquitous as ever, strong and a vibrant green. They held no flowers; they were not that type of plant.

The shop was closed for the day, the sign hanging in the front door, glinting in the late afternoon sun. Lizette had always found it fascinating how as the seasons changed, the amount of daylight shifted to match it. In the spring and summer, it seemed to last forever, well into what was considered evening. Whereas the autumn and winter had the sun barely lasting over half the day, withering quickly the moment the afternoon was coming to a close. It dipped in the horizon now, the light angling through the shop before the buildings opposite were tall enough to block it out completely, casting ominous shadows across the space that made up what she did for a living.

Lizette headed to the room in the back that made up her office, eyeing the chair that Kaya had first sat down upon and learned of her fate. At the moment, instead of a naïve girl, a pile of books were situated upon it. Tomes and texts, mostly in different languages, were what the mound consisted of. Questionable knowledge was held within their pages, the darker side of magic that more than a few people in history had been seduced by. Lizette rifled through them, moving some books to new piles and causing another pile to topple over that she barely noticed before she found what she was looking for.

A large tome bound in worn dark leather, its corners edged in steel and covered with intricate and exotic engravings, magic symbols to those who knew what they were looking at. Lizette could feel the age of the book as she picked it up, the thousands of yellowing pages held weight that wasn’t just a physical thing as she made space on her desk and carefully put the book down. Lizette had bought this tome a long time ago, costing her a pretty penny at the time and for once, it wasn’t a book she wanted to resell despite never having gone through it in its entirety. Its dark secrets might prove too much of a temptation even to her and it held no value to the average person.

But Lizette was anything but that.

Hovering her right hand over the cover of the book, she closed her eyes and retreated into her mind, into the part that made her different from everyone else. The reaction was instant, it was like opening a door to a long lost friend returned and knowing that they were on the other side. Power sang through Lizette’s veins, flowing like water that had been held fast by a dam, it reached into every part of her and pushed a gentle glow to the skin of her hand that she held over the book. Keeping her eyes closed, she visualised what she was looking for.

Seconds later, she saw the witch. Lizette thought herself grateful that she had never seen her in person, but the images produced were as if she was standing opposite her in the room. Always dressed in barely anything at all, a piece of cloth wrapped around her body that left nothing to the imagination, pale hair that seemed to float like it should be underwater and even paler eyes, blue and vivid and so incredibly inhuman set in a face of such beauty. Lizette knew it was all a lie. The magic that flowed through the witch wasn’t the same that Lizette or even Gwyn harnessed. It had twisted and changed her over the years to the point she was unrecognisable and the beautiful woman people saw, what Jaycen first saw, was nothing but a mirage. The oldest trick one could perform.

The air in the study began to crackle with energy as Lizette focused on the witch’s image in her mind. It helped that Kaya had explained in great detail what she had seen and Lizette pushed all of that into the mental image. “Who are you?” She whispered. “What are you?” If the information was anywhere, it had to be in this book. “Show me.”

The air crackled further and her hand began to glow brighter, building in its intensity. The book flew open, pages whipping through air in a gust that was localized around Lizette. Other books in the room began to lift upwards, the chair began to rise as the books on top clattered to the floor. But Lizette paid them no mind as she pulled the magic in her blood further forward. It yielded rapidly, eager to be set free and utilised in a way that it hadn’t for far too long a time. The bars of its otherworldly cage rattling and humming under the pressure the power she was discharging.

The book under her palm found the pages she was seeking and the wind ceased. Even without opening her eyes, Lizette saw the words written in their strange flowing script, cursive and bold but faded and old. _So old_. The knowledge they held was ancient, made her bones ache and in a burst of white behind her eyelids, they revealed their secrets in flashes of images; 

_The laughing face of a youth, a man in fine clothes. His hair has been styled to fit with the elegance of the room he was in and the woman he was standing opposite, eyeing her with deep brown eyes. She was dressed in red and gold, pale blonde hair cascading in a silky wave down her back, blue eyes sparkling like the ocean. She took the orchid that he offered to her._

_The same woman in labour, sweat beading on her forehead and her mouth open on a soundless scream. The wail of a newborn followed._

_A child, toddling around on unsteady legs, matching blonde hair like his mother and the brown eyes of his father. He came across a wilted flower and began to cry. He picked it, cupping it in such tiny hands, he brought it to his face and breathed out like he was whispering to it softly. His mother watched in awe as the flower returned to its former glory, her son smiling at her like he had not a care in the world._

_A breath of magic on the wind was chased with the bitter taste of disgust, revulsion. The mother and father arguing as she ushered her son out of the room, shutting him out behind a door as the man continued to yell, a feeble attempt to keep him out of it. The words were unclear, a language of forgotten times, they needed not to be understood to feel the desperation from one side and contempt from the other._

_A secret, a whisper, a promise._

_Nobody will harm you, nobody will take you from me. You are perfect just the way you are._

_Men in golden armour, glinting in the sun. Screams and cries of a mother in anguish, she was held back and could not go to her son._

_Electricity sizzled in the air, sparking hot blue light that burned the men in their armour from the inside. It was meant to take external blows and in the face of such power, it crumpled and they fell. More screams, more skin scorching and gold melting into the ground, seeping into the cracks of the dry earth beneath. A burst of light so bright it blinded everything looking its way._

_Scattered ashes, nobody could tell where one had ended and another began. The house destroyed. The anguished cry was a bellow of sorrow. What have I done? What am I? The ashes were taken on the breeze and the empty sadness in the screams turned into rage._

_Fury. Hatred._

_The secrets, the whispers and the promises. Had they all been nothing but lies?_

_A woman running through the trees of a forest, tears on her cheeks, blood around her mouth which wasn’t hers. Male voices behind her, pushing her deeper into the forest. The branches caught her white dress, tore it to shreds, revealed her arms and legs and chest and stomach. She was exposed to the elements but she didn’t stop, she kept running, kept being chased._

_Violated, bruised, beaten, despised, feared. Nobody wants you, nobody will understand you. You must leave. Voices loud and voices quiet, they all said the same things over and over._

_You’re a monster. You’re a monster…you’re a monster!_

_Dead men in a circle around her, staining the shreds of her white dress a crimson like that on the most opulent rose. She smiled. They cannot hurt me anymore._

_A flock of black and white birds screeched in the skies above, coming in to land on the bodies of the fallen, a few coming to land on a pale shoulder and outstretched arm._

_Nobody will hurt me ever again._

The book slammed shut and the items levitating in the room crashed back to the ground. Lizette’s hand had closed into a fist and the power she held in her palm exploded outwards. The glass of the windows smashed and the desk cracked in half under the weight of the force that split through the air and had nowhere else to go.

Flung from the place she was standing, Lizette’s back hit one wall as the shelves on the opposite wall above her desk fell, the glass jars splintering into a million pieces, their contents spilling across the room.

Shoving her power back into its metaphysical container in her mind, Lizette cried out at the stab of pain in her head. It pulsed behind her eyes which she had barely managed to open before they were forced to close again. The images she had been shown were sealed into her mind, as they should be. Was that what was causing the pain? Feeling hot drops of liquid on her forearm, Lizette forced her eyes open to see red rivulets running over her skin. She lifted her fingertip to her nose which came away red.

That was when she noticed the skin of her right hand…it was blackened, burned like she had held it in fire for hours, the skin flaking away and her nails non-existent. The damage had reached her wrist where it abruptly stopped, fading into the usual caramel colour and completely unscathed. Lizette froze in place, ignoring the lingering pain in her head and in her back from hitting the wall so forcefully, looking in horror at what reading the book had done. Oddly, it wasn’t painful, just hideous to look at. She could spy the bone through the crisp skin and when she moved her hand, tiny pieces of it withered away further when she tried to flex her fingers.

Clutching it to her chest for moment, Lizette wiped her nose and tried to steady her breathing and rapidly beating heart. It was likely there wasn’t a healing spell strong enough to regain her skin, but Lizette drew some of the energy she had left and blew out a breeze onto her hand. For a moment, nothing happened, but after what couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes, Lizette watched as her magic finally did some repairs to her skin. The unaffected skin at wrist slowly began to creep back up the back of her hand, twining its way up to her fingers. She watched in fascination as her fingernails grew at an accelerated rate, but the skin regrowth was sporadic, aimless. The skin regrowth didn’t reach completely over her hand. Instead, it ran in thin tendrils over the back, barely covering her palm and leaving sinewy tendons still besmirched and charred.

The study was a mess with countless shards of glass and wood splintered all over the floor. Numerous books were strewn about and the chair in the corner of the room had collapsed onto its side. A lot of clearing up was needed, but Lizette hardly had the energy to do anything about that right now.

She had _seen_ the witch. The ancient text and its strange language held pieces of her past. She had been human, had a husband, a home, a child. Some sort of magic, perhaps the first of its kind was hidden in her blood and had been passed on to her son. It seemed she had not truly known of her ability until her son was taken from her and by that point, it was too late. Hounded for the remainder of her human life, she disappeared into the forest and was never seen again. At least, not in the form she had when she was last seen.

And the birds! The black and white ‘vampire birds’ that Lizette remembered reading what they were all about, a bird of carrion that feasted on the flesh and blood of the dead had flown down to her. Seeing them in the forest had been a warning, and one that Lizette should have looked into sooner. Now, it had cost her and the witch had tried to take a hold of Kaya. The bout of pain in her head that had since faded must be just like what Kaya had been experiencing on more than a few occasions since leaving the forest clearing.

She had to tell Kaya as soon as possible. 

As the sun finally disappeared below the horizon for the day and night had set in, Lizette’s study space looked somewhat better. She considered herself a somewhat untidy person but there was no way that she could leave the place in such a mess. The piles of books now lined one wall for her to sort through later and the glass jars were back in one piece and crammed onto the floor in front of the books. The windows were repaired too, an easy enough task, but the wooden desk and shelves would have to be replaced. Wood fractured in a different way to glass and Lizette decided to use it as an excuse to do a bit of redecorating.

Grabbing the book and shoving it into a leather satchel sturdy enough to take its weight and the handful of other things Lizette decided to bring along, she made sure to put on a pair of gloves. Thankful that it was the winter season and they wouldn’t look out of place, she carefully pulled the soft interior of the glove over her damaged hand. She had no idea as to how long it would stay like that and hiding it further as the weather got warmer again could prove a problem, but Lizette pushed that concern from her mind. Grateful that she could still channel magic through the damage, she summoned a portal in the main open space of the shop and stepped through.

The whiteness of the portal was illuminated further by its light reflecting off the layer of snow that covered the ground in the southwestern fields of Erstweald. Several inches thick and completely untouched in this corner of the world, for a moment Lizette was overwhelmed with the urge to trample through it. The flash of childlike joy that ran through her was quelled an instant later when the portal vanished behind her, the heavy stillness of the countryside setting in. Kaya’s cottage was just up ahead, shrouded in darkness. There were no lights on inside, which was unusual as Kaya always fell asleep with a single flame going, claiming she simply forgot to put it out and having Lizette provide her with a lantern that would contain the candle’s wax and become less of a fire hazard in such an old building. 

At present, although it was getting on a bit in the evening, it was still way too early that Kaya would usually go to bed and she had not made Lizette aware she would be away from the cottage to stay with Jaycen for a time. It stopped impromptu visits like this one obviously was, but something didn’t feel right.

Lizette walked briskly up to the structure, its stone walls frosting over in the freezing temperature of the night. The lack of wind added to this, giving the elements free reign over what they chose to encase in ice. It gave the cottage a somewhat creepy look to it which only intensified when Lizette noticed the front door wide open.

Breaking into a run, Lizette called out to Kaya, pausing at the little wooden gate that separated the front garden and the road, Lizette saw footprints heading out the front door. Only one set, making their way from inside the house to the gate where they suddenly stopped. It had not yet snowed enough for footprints in snow this deep to be concealed. They were recent.

Throwing the gate open and compelled by the urge to check the house, Lizette threw out her inward senses and scanned the interior for anyone or anything inside. As she expected, she found nothing. The chill of the air inside the house’s entryway threatened to go beyond the warm clothes she wore and the moment Lizette ducked her head into the darkness of the kitchen, she felt that icy touch twist into something more sinister.

A scattering of candles on the kitchen table had been blown out and recently when Lizette touched their wicks, pulling off a glove and feeling them a little warm on her fingertip. The eerie coolness to the air felt exactly like the clearing and Lizette’s stomach dropped when she realised what this meant.

The witch had come for Kaya.

Heading back outside and slamming the front door shut behind her, Lizette knew there had been no struggle. It was likely the witch had enchanted Kaya and she had gone without resisting, having no ability to put up a fight. Kaya’s words she had spoken when they got back from the clearing after her hallucination rang like a thousand bells inside her head;

_“If I met her again somehow, there is nothing I could do to stop her.”_

Anger began to curl its way through the shock and fear when Lizette remembered what she had said in return; _it won’t come to that._

She had promised. She had failed.

Steeling herself, Lizette conjured a portal on the front lawn of snow and ice. Its emptiness comforting her for a moment before she stepped through to face the only one who might be able to track Kaya down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bloody hell, look at all those italics! Believe me when I say that putting the emphasis tags where they were needed was a chore in itself.
> 
> \- HWR


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaya does her best to stay calm in the unique situation she finds herself in and becomes witness to a ritual of the darkest desires in the dead of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS ABOUND: although everything Kaya sees is completely consensual, she is forced to witness it and therefore I have added a new tag. If you're not into it, you can skip it as it's not majorly plot central, just an excuse to write some teratophilia smut with an underlying breeding kink :) 
> 
> I also switch from Kaya's POV to nobody's POV to describe better what's going on as it worked HELLA better than me constantly going "Kaya watched this" and "Kaya saw that" etc etc. That would have been annoying.
> 
> >:D

Kaya had been fighting the urge to panic and scream for longer than she cared to remember since regaining her consciousness in the forest clearing. The woman that had surrounded her, although they seemed harmless, set her on an edge she hadn’t stood on since she was a child and was being told ghost stories by her father, unbeknownst to her mother. These women held her with such great fascination, like she was the queen herself, that it bordered on creepy. They knew who Jaycen was and they knew what she had done with him, which crushed her brief thoughts that the witch didn’t know who she was when she had first dragged her screaming into that delusion.

Her memory between the realisation the women knew who she and Jaycen were and to where she was now, was hazy and fragmented. She remembers being led away by the hand of the woman who had spoken to her, of the large trees passing her by, the forest clearing getting further in the distance and then…nothing. Now, when Kaya finally regained enough of her mind to comprehend what was going on, she found herself in a wooden cabin. The windows had been boarded up but somewhat poorly and Kaya could see the night sky through the gaps in the wooden slats. Hackles rising, Kaya quickly took in what the cabin consisted of.

It wasn’t huge, perhaps a little larger than her bedroom in her cottage. A heavy looking door was directly opposite in the centre of the wall, one window on either side. A single bed with a wire frame was in the corner of the room, messily made with white sheets but relatively clean. A chamber pot could be spied just situated underneath it in the dim light and a waning stone fireplace was behind Kaya although it looked to not have been host to flames in a very long time. Despite the frigid air of the winter season outside, inside the cabin Kaya felt relatively warm and when she looked down, she realised she had been dressed in similar attire to what the women wore; a sleeveless white dress.

It was almost translucent in the way it clung to Kaya’s form, being slightly fitted around her middle so it encouraged the display of her figure. When she looked down at it, the dress complemented her hips and fit snugly around her breasts. All her undergarments had been removed.

Shuddering at the thought of being completely vulnerable and exposed with no control whatsoever, Kaya got to her feet and pressed herself against one window, trying to see out of the gaps in the covered window. Outside, several women sat around a campfire in the middle of three other wooden cabins. They laughed and chatted amongst themselves as if they had been friends for a long time, their carefree nature so incredibly out of place in the desolate location they seemed to be in.

A figure moving in front of the window had Kaya jumping back in surprise, a gasp of terror leaving her mouth. She clamped her hand over it before it could turn into a scream.

The door clicked and groaned as whoever was on the other side unlocked and opened the door. The woman that had spoken to Kaya stepped in, blue eyes shining with something Kaya could not place when they locked stares as she shut the door behind her. Her face shifted instantly to something more serious as she held up her hands to show her placidness.

“Please, I won’t hurt you,” Her musical voice filled the cabin as Kaya realised that she had backed herself up against the wall furthest away from the door. “I just want to talk.” Kaya noticed she carried a lantern in one hand, its glow casting eerie shadows on the walls of the cabin.

Kaya forced herself to calm as best she could, heart hammering in her chest so fiercely she could feel her pulse behind her eyes. “Where am I?” 

“Somewhere safe, deep in the southern forest.” The woman replied.

“Why am I here? Why have you brought me here?” Kaya couldn’t help the way her breath pushed out of her lungs when she spoke. It betrayed the way she held herself, trying not to show any weakness, any fear.

“We want you to teach us,” the woman only answered one of her questions and took a couple of steps forward into the cabin. “Only one of us have done what you have, but we still have so much to learn.” 

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re a mother,” The woman smiled at Kaya. “You bred with a wolf, you bred with the Cursed One of all the wolves in the world, and you bore his children.”

“How do you know this?” They knew too much.

“Our Mistress. She knows all.” The woman lowered herself to the floor in the middle of the cabin, sitting cross-legged as she placed the lantern down next to her, never breaking eye contact. “Please, will you answer my questions? I may be able to answer some of yours.”

It seemed like a fair trade, but Kaya was no fool. These women knew who she was because their witch had invaded her mind. The ancient cult of old had been reformed and Kaya could hardly believe she was speaking with one of them. In the grand scheme of things, should she get through this, it was the perfect opportunity to gain information as to why they were doing this in the first place. It might be the only opportunity someone got since their origins of times long past. Nobody had ever spoken with a cult member; everything that was written was second hand knowledge, passed down through legends and folklore.

Kaya drew in a breath, pushing it back out with force and leaning fully against the wall. Her hands came to rest either side of her, palms against the wood. She would not sit down, she could not relax in the presence of this woman, but if talking was all she wanted to do… “What do you want to know?”

The woman beamed at her, seemingly pleased with her response and she relaxed, spine losing its rigidity as she hunched forward a little and into a more comfortable position. “How did you meet the Cursed One?”

Kaya suspected this question, so answered as vaguely as she could. “By accident.”

“You did not perform any magic to bring him to you?”

“No, I am not a mage.” She thought that was obvious, but perhaps not. The woman simply nodded a little, eyes downcast for a moment before their deep blueness came back up to regard her. “Are you a mage?” Not being one herself, Kaya wouldn’t have the faintest idea if someone had magic in their blood until they demonstrated it.

The woman smiled sadly, shaking her head. “No, I don’t have the gift either.” Although she didn’t, that did not mean that one of the others in the cult did, even just a little bit if they were true Erstwealdian. Many of her country’s kin had a small measure of it, sometimes going nearly their whole life before they figured out they could light a candle without striking a match.

“How did you get the Cursed One to breed with you?” The woman’s question reminded Kaya so much of one of the first things Lizette had asked her. She didn’t have an explanation then and she didn’t really have one now.

“Again, it was sort of…by accident. I didn’t plan on it.”

The woman frowned, spine stiffening. “He took you by force?” 

“No! I just…it just happened. I was willing, it wasn’t by force.”

The woman relaxed again, “Oh, good. I would feel for you if he took you against your will.” Kaya didn’t know how to reply, so she stayed silent, letting the awkwardness in the air between them grow.

“What’s your name?” Kaya asked, voice coming out just a whisper. The woman looked at her, brushing a hand through her hair.

“My name is Agnes.” An old Erstwealdian name, one that wasn’t often seen these days. Now that she knew her name, this woman felt a little less like a stranger, but Kaya still didn’t trust her.

“Why are you part of this?”

“Part of what?” Agnes tilted her head innocently.

“Part of this _cult._ Are you here because you want to be here?”

“Of course!” Agnes chuckled, a girlish sound. “There was nothing for me in life before I came here.”

“And how long have you been here?”

“Only a couple of weeks.” Agnes’ face developed a dreamy smile as she stared off into space for a moment. Once again and for a countless time, Kaya wished for some sort of magical ability. She couldn’t tell if Agnes was simply brainwashed into believing she was here for a noble cause or if she was purely being mind-controlled by the witch from afar.  
“Where’s your Mistress?” Kaya dared ask, her question bringing Agnes back into the present.

“She’s nearby.” The vague answer had Kaya’s heart picking up again, the back of her mind screaming at her to get as far away as possible from this woman and everything else here.

“Is she going to kill me?” Kaya had to know, had to know if she was going to die here and never see her family again. It had her gut clenching in anguish.

“No, of course not.” Agnes replied, pensive smile returning. “Our Mistress sees your potential. She had never imagined her creation would go as far as procreating with a human.”

“Is that so strange?” Kaya queried.

“Yes, he is not a true werewolf.” Agnes said those words like it explained everything but to Kaya, with a relatively small amount of knowledge of Jaycen’s kind, couldn’t hide the curiosity that she felt flood to her face.

“So what is?”

“A true werewolf can change at will. They are born with their ability, not cursed with it.” Kaya mulled over Agnes’ response. Perhaps she already knew, having access to the witch’s knowledge to tell her so, but her words only meant one thing to Kaya; Jaycen’s children would eventually take a human form.

Agnes shifted in her seated position, eyeing Kaya with a thoughtful glare. “Do you know how many wolves there are in this part of the world?”

“No,” Kaya shrugged. “I have no idea.” 

“Hundreds.” Agnes replied, her voice full of wonderment as she revealed this piece of information to Kaya who raised her chin, contemplating and watching Agnes’ awestruck expression. It was like the very meaning of existence had been revealed to her. “Perhaps too many to count.”

“And they are so different?” Kaya asked but she did not get a reply from Agnes. In a way, that answered her question. The cultist simply smiled at her as if trying to feed her pleasure into Kaya through eye contact alone. Stuck for what to ask next, Kaya took another deep breath and waited to see what Agnes would do next. The woman didn’t keep her waiting long.

“How many children do you have?” Kaya didn’t like this question. If the witch had shared that Kaya was a mother but not to how many children, it made her distrust increase tenfold. Why would she withhold that information? Especially since she seemed to know everything else of importance for the cult. When she didn’t reply, Agnes chuckled again. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me. I am sure our Mistress will tell us soon enough.” Well, that was that then. Kaya looked away, down to the floor. 

“What do you want with me?”

“I already told you; we want you to teach us.”

“Teach you _what_ exactly?” Kaya suspected but she did not voice her thoughts and instead, waited for Agnes to respond.

“Teach us _how._ We are to summon a wolf soon, though it is not my turn. It is another’s before myself.”

“I don’t understand, what am I supposed to be teaching you?” Kaya was lost.

“How to breed.” Agnes replied. “Once the wolf is summoned, what do we do?”

For the second time, Kaya wasn’t sure how to reply. It didn’t take any particular skill, she just remembered having the confidence in Jaycen to be gentle with her, which of course, he was. Did the witch not tell the women what to do? 

Watching her struggle for words, Agnes seemed to guess what she might be thinking. “Nothing specific you can offer us?” Kaya shook her head at the question.

“Not really.”

“It’s that simple?” Agnes didn’t immediately seem convinced but when Kaya shrugged a little, at a loss for words, Agnes sighed. “I always assumed we would have to prepare ourselves to take something that big.”

Oh…right. Kaya knew what she was talking about without her having to divulge further information. The next words she spoke were more to herself than to the cultist in the room.

“Just relax.”

“Such a straightforward piece of advice.” Agnes hummed thoughtfully.

“Your…Mistress, she doesn’t tell you what to do?”

“She watches over us, but we must act of our own initiative when the werewolf comes for us. You will see soon enough.” 

“I…will?” Kaya did _not_ like the sound of that.

“Tomorrow night,” Agnes declared, “we will be summoning the wolf for the next chosen. It is not you, not yet anyway, but you will see what we do. It is her wish.” With that said she picked up the lantern and stood, smoothing her dress down. “It is very late, try and get some rest. During the day tomorrow you are free to walk around our camp, but you can’t leave of course.” She spoke so casually with words that made Kaya truly feel like a hostage. She watched as Agnes left the cabin, hearing the door lock firmly behind her.

Spirit dampened further knowing what was eventually in store for her, Kaya curled into a ball on the bed, her chest feeling tighter and tighter until it finally wracked her whole body with uncontrollable sobs. When her voice escaped, it caught on soft cries that were more like that of a child, but Kaya could not help it. Closing her eyes, she let her grief exhaust her until she couldn’t stay awake anymore. 

***

A shake to her shoulder woke Kaya the next morning. Strangely, the cabin had stayed warm despite how cold it must have gotten in the night, especially in the forest. Kaya noticed now that it was the day, there were gaps in the roof above that let tendrils of sunlight peek through.

Agnes was standing over her, holding a plate consisting of two fried eggs, some toasted bread, grapes and a few sliced strawberries. A small fork was positioned next to the food, balancing on the side of the plate. “Good morning,” she positioned the plate down on the bottom of the bed, “I made you breakfast” she exclaimed cheerily. Kaya rubbed at her eyes, sitting up on one arm to properly look at what was offered. She hadn’t eaten at all yesterday and when she eyed the food, her stomach growled in protest. It would do her no good to not eat, she had to have her strength if she wanted to get away somehow.

Kaya accepted the food, sitting cross legged on the bed as Agnes watched her for a moment. “We have some coffee on the go in the main camp, I will leave the door unlocked so you’re welcome to join us when you’re ready.” She turned to leave, closing the door behind her but Kaya heard no heavy _clang_ of the locks. Agnes’ strange trust in her did not make Kaya feel better. It was all a lie, nothing but an attempt to get Kaya to relax and also seemed to be some sort of attempt at getting her to trust in her and the cult’s belief, whatever that was.

When she thought about it, she still didn’t know why they were doing what they were doing. Even when Lizette had found the escaped woman in the marshes, they had only figured out _what_ they were doing and not _why._ Kaya ate one of the eggs and a piece of toast, was unable to resist the sweet burst of flavour that the strawberries offered, but left the rest, letting curiosity get the better of her to finally go outside and see this ‘camp’.

The door creaked massively when Kaya opened it, something she didn’t notice it doing when Agnes moved it. Damn, she really needed to start paying better attention to her surroundings.

The light made Kaya squint for a moment as the door opened and she stepped out onto the makeshift porch. Just ahead, she could see a campfire going, several women clustered around it watching the flames, chatting to each other and some even either doing crochet or knitting. To either side of the campfire were wooden cabins, one apiece, featuring matching porches and boarded up windows. Beyond the campfire in the centre, Kaya could see another larger wooden cabin where more women had gathered on the porch, one in a rocking chair and obviously pregnant. 

Taking in the sights, Kaya could not help but notice how extremely out of place they all looked. Just like the forest clearing, no snow had fallen here, the air was pleasantly fresh and the women, like herself, were dressed in the exact same outfit of a sleeveless white dress that hugged their bodies close before billowing out from their waist. Everything they were doing, from talking to each other, cooking, one woman was even painting, seemed far too casual a thing when compared to just why they were all here together. None of them looked afraid or upset, they looked…calm and peaceful. Kaya blinked hard; it felt like a fever dream.

She didn’t know anything about cults, not really, had read somewhere about them years ago that made them seem oppressive and harsh but she had certainly not prepared herself for the superficial normality displayed in front of her. Just like last night, Kaya wanted to cry, but she refused to do so in front of these strangers.

Agnes broke away from the campfire in the centre and came up the few timber steps, pausing just in front of Kaya. “Come on,” she beckoned to her. “I’ll show you around.”  
Hesitantly, Kaya made her way down and kept as much distance from Agnes as she could but remained close enough to show the other woman that she was actually following her. The brunette introduced her to the several women around the fire as if she were a long-time friend that they had never met. Proceeding to do the same at the women gathered on the porches of the cabins to their left and right before ushering her forward to the larger cabin. Kaya’s skin was crawling by the time she reached the steps of this building, her emotions at war within her and were torn between trying to understand these people and simply fleeing from them.

“Kaya, this is Jasmine.” Agnes gestured to the pregnant woman sitting in the rocking chair. Much like the others, she was around the same age with ash blonde hair that reached her waist. Sky blue eyes and a small mouth were set in skin of light cream skin with a slight peony blush. Kaya could definitely see a trend between everyone here, the main factors being they were of their prime reproductive age and all generally very attractive albeit in different ways. It made Kaya wonder if this was something the witch preferred, or the werewolves themselves.

“It’s nice to meet you,” a delicate feminine voice reached Kaya’s ears and she forced a small smile in response. Jasmine pointed to a spare chair next to hers and immediately, Kaya felt obligated to sit. She wasn’t sure if it was the fear still coiling itself inside her or her good manners that compelled her to do so; possibly a mix of both. “Has Agnes been nice to you?” 

“Yes.” 

“Good!” Jasmine smiled. “She is our newest member, so she is still learning of our ways.” She said it like it explained everything, but Agnes hadn’t exactly been rude to her. The said woman they were speaking about has hurried to the campfire to retrieve a mug of coffee and was making her way over to Kaya, extending her arm and offering it to her.   
“Thanks.” Kaya mumbled, unsure if she could actually make herself drink something this strong as when she looked down at the mug, it was black coffee. It had been a long time since Kaya had had coffee; she was more of a tea person.

When Agnes went off, the few others behind Jasmine on the porch followed her, leaving just her as company for Kaya who immediately felt her hackles rise again. Jasmine didn’t seem dangerous, in fact, she looked encumbered by her obvious state of pregnancy. The graceful curve of her protruding stomach was hard not to look at when Kaya knew just what it was she was carrying inside her.

“I do not mean to come off as too forward,” Jasmine began, “but this is my first litter and you are the only one here among us with any previous experience, can I ask you some questions about it?” More questions, Kaya thought, more digging into who she was and what she had done. She could hardly believe that there was only one woman in the entire group of at least thirty of them who had werewolf offspring on the way. Had all these women only just joined? Was this a completely new start to the witch’s ancient history?

“Sure.” Kaya avoided looking at Jasmine when she spoke, making her feel a tiny bit better.

“Great!” Jasmine sounded way too pleased. “So, how many did you have?” There was that question again, and Kaya bit her tongue. She did not want to reveal how many sons she had lest the witch turn her attention to them next for whatever reason. Even if she didn’t immediately have one, the witch could surely use Lucius, Flint, Ozias and Torin as bargaining chips.

“A few.” Kaya kept her answer as vague as possible but she saw Jasmine nod in understanding out of the corner of her eye. 

“I was told there is always at least two pups as a minimum, I’m having three myself.” She rubbed her belly lovingly, focusing just below her navel. 

Kaya couldn’t help but ask. “How long before they’re born?”

“Oh, a little while yet, approximately ten weeks.” 

“Are you afraid?” Kaya whispered.

For a moment, Jasmine’s exuberance faded. “No,” she replied, “I have nothing to worry about with everyone here to help me.” Kaya was sure she would have felt more confident with more people to help her along too, but it hadn’t been so. “This might be a stupid question, but does giving birth hurt?” Jasmine laughed. “Or maybe I should word it better to, how much does it hurt?”

Kaya remembered how much of a fight Lucius had put up in comparison to his brothers who came a lot easier. “The first is the worst,” she replied honestly, “the others come easier.”

Jasmine simply nodded. Their conversation drifted back and forth for a little while longer as Kaya tried her best to keep her answers in one simple sentence and somewhat obscure. She didn’t know if the women were catching on to it or not, but their questions were just as intrusive as she parted company from Jasmine and her strange contentment and wandered around the camp. Although she didn’t actively seek out anyone’s company, the women were most eager to seek out hers. There wasn’t much time to be had to herself as just when Kaya thought there was, someone else would come along and start talking to her.

They spoke of how long they had been part of the cult, though they didn’t call it that. To them, they were a ‘circle’ as they named the formational shape they took around the altar when they were practicing their dark art and their time here varied from just a couple of weeks like Agnes, to several years like the eldest of the group, a woman named Halyn. Though none explained their true purpose for being here, they seemed to reveal each other’s story as to how they got here until as Kaya was certain that everyone had spoken to her, she could recount many different ways as to _how_ the women got here.

Agnes herself, had been dying of a disease of the lungs and had run away into the southern forest to take her life and end her suffering when the witch had appeared and stopped her. Jasmine had been exiled from her village for having sex outside of marriage and had gotten lost in the forest, certain that she would die here before she saw the witch rise from some lake nearby. Halyn, the only mage in the cult, had left the main city after she couldn’t get accepted for study at the Emporium and had planned to travel west into the marshlands to reach the other side when her carriage was raided by highwaymen. They had taken Halyn into the forest to do Gods knows what and the witch had rescued her and killed her captors.

The way they all spoke of their dark Mistress made her sound like she was some grand heroin like in the old tales Kaya would read in her bedroom at night. In one way or another, she had saved them from themselves, saved them from death, disease or some other abhorrent fate and solidified herself in their minds as their only saviour. As the only one who would understand and accept them from here on out. What’s more, being surrounded by others with a similar tale as to how they met the witch not only cast her in the light rather than the dark, but understandably made it difficult for any of the women to believe that she was otherwise an evil person.

Jasmine’s story had her pondering; older generations may still adhere to it when dictating to their grandchildren but sleeping with someone before marriage had been permitted in Erstweald for hundreds of years. Part of someone’s free will and how they chose to live their life was completely down to them. Where in the country was Jasmine from that this was still illegal?

As Kaya stood by the edge of the camp, finally having a moment to herself, she realised all the women had one thing in common; they had all been in the southern forest when they encountered the witch. Could that be a coincidence? Could the witch not leave the forest? She had appeared as some sort of floating vision to Kaya when she recalled seeing her in the fields outside her home, a floating ball of smoky blue light that had tricked her mind, practically taken it over. As she mulled this over, Kaya watched as the snow fell around the camp, but not in it. The camp was, for lack of a better way to put it, in its own little bubble. The sun wasn’t exactly shining above them but it could be made out in the clouds above that let their snowfall rain down on the ground, covering everything in a growingly thick layer that it looked like cotton. It bunched on the branches of the trees, coated the ground several inches deep and made everything look muted and obscure. 

Yet the camp stayed free of any snow, the air both warm and cool enough that she never felt uncomfortable wearing a dress in what was technically winter, it was just an incredibly surreal feeling to watch snow from one side of the bubble and be completely unaffected by it on the other. No doubt, it was the witch’s magic and with every example of it, Kaya was certain this was the most powerful creature in all of Erstweald. 

When the evening finally drew in and the skies cleared of clouds full of snow for the day, Agnes sought Kaya out and explained to her that they were getting ready for the ritual. Kaya felt sick, terror and distrust swirling through her, making her stomach twist in knots and her nails dig crescent moons into her palms. She didn’t want to go with them and witness this, she wanted to go home!

“This is not an act of violence, Kaya.” Agnes assured her as she Kaya face away from her so she could brush her auburn hair, much to Kaya’s discomfort. “Nobody will be hurt doing this. It’s an honour to be the next chosen.” The words didn’t sound forced, Agnes truly believed she was part of something great.

“What is the purpose of all this?” Kaya whispered in the growing darkness of the cabin, watching the flames of the lantern cast strange shadows on the walls. Agnes stopped brushing her hair and turned Kaya around by her shoulders to face her, almost at perfect eye level.

“We are creating the future.”

Kaya didn’t have time to question it as Halyn stuck her head around the door, announcing it was time to leave. Slipping on some basic leather boots that hid themselves under her dress, Kaya had a second to wonder how they were supposed to keep warm if they were heading into the forest when Agnes caught her confused look. 

“Our Mistress won’t let us feel the cold, you’ll be fine.” She smiled sweetly at Kaya and that expression sent her heart racing, nervous anticipation building for what it was she was going to witness.

Kaya had little choice but to follow the single file line of women to wherever it was they were going. Not everyone went, such as Jasmine, who stayed behind in the camp with a handful of others. Halyn took the front, clearing the snow with what Kaya could only assume was some sort of fire magic as it rapidly melted in front of her outstretched hand, carving an easy path for the rest of them to follow. Remarkably, they didn’t walk for as long as Kaya thought they would. With the sun set, she had no idea which direction they were travelling in and could only hope to guess by the time the clearing came into view. Unlike her hallucinations of this frightful place, the sky didn’t turn red and black and thankfully stayed a clear inky blue, alight with the full moon and countless stars. 

Torches had been placed strategically around the entire treeline, highlighting the gentle circle that made up the area. A torch on the four corners of the altar itself further lit up the clearing and adding the silvery glow of the full moon, Kaya could see almost everything clearly. She scanned around for the witch, but there was nobody else here. Halyn procured a small ball of fire from her fist as she came to stand in front of the women, who had gathered in a semi-circle around her to listen. Throwing her raven hair over her shoulder, a smile tugged one corner of her mouth.

“Here we are again, under the light of the full moon in this place of old,” She looked at everyone in turn, looking at Kaya last of all. “Tonight, we have someone new among us who has already bred with a wolf, something that most of us can only hope to do as we await our turn.” Everyone turned to look at Kaya who wanted to do nothing but shrink into the ground and disappear. “We will have to use our imagination to help us visualise your _accidental_ coupling with the Cursed One, but among us, we plan our meetings with our wolves, with the ultimate creature of the night.” Halyn finally looked at someone else in the crowd. “Tara, step forward.”

The woman Halyn beckoned to her side, Tara, was much like the others in her description of lovely to look at and graceful in her movements. She eagerly stood next to Halyn and looked up at her with so much respect as the longest serving member might expect, as Halyn looked pleased. “Let us begin.”

In an instant, the women fanned out to form a circle around the altar as Tara pulled her dress from her body, handing it to Halyn who took it from her. Kaya, unsure where to stand, found herself taking several steps backwards to get out of everyone’s way as they moved. “Come here, Kaya. You can stand with me.” Halyn stood back from the circle, not involving herself in it at all. Not having any other choice, Kaya moved to the safe distance away from the group as she began to feel the air grow warm.

Tara, now naked as the day she was born, hoisted herself onto the bed of the main platform, placing her feet on the stone, knees bent. The circle of women around her began to chant, the words in a foreign language Kaya couldn’t understand but quickly heard the repetition of two short sentences strung together. It was a language like nothing she had ever heard, not even from the traders at the annual summer fair who came from all over the world. Whatever it was they were saying, was the cause of the air to grow hot like it was the summer season itself, a gentle hum becoming apparent to her ears that had the hair on the back of Kaya’s neck stand on end. The awful sensation ran down her arms, covering them in gooseflesh, jaw hardening as she spied a faint blue glow begin to appear at the base of the altar.

Growing in its intensity, it seemed to appear from the grassy ground and reach upwards, steadily taking the form of the one thing Kaya hoped she wouldn’t have to see again. She was a fool to think so.

The witch had taken shape, looking as real as she had done when Kaya had watched her emerge from the forest alongside her white werewolf. The single strip of cloth covering her had been replaced with something almost matching what the women were wearing, covering nearly all of her pastel skin apart from the tips of her bare toes, her bony hands and a moderately low curve of her neckline showing the slight mounds of her breasts. Her change of attire still held close to her form, flowing around her in a breeze that only seemed to affect her and nobody else.

Kaya’s heart pounded in her chest. She almost wished she could close her eyes but something was making her unable to do so. Instead, she watched as the witch approached where Tara was laying, mouth moving with words that only she could hear. The brunette nodded her understanding with a small smile on her face and the witch moved away. To Kaya’s utmost horror, she began making her way past the circle of seemingly enthralled women and headed for where Kaya and Halyn were standing.

Halyn bowed her head in respect, knees bending slightly with the gesture and the witch smiled, her beautiful face depicting happiness but Kaya could see it once again not reach her eyes. Their stark paleness held an emptiness unlike anything she had ever seen, devoid of emotion as if they were made from stone.

Kaya couldn’t help but take one step back, then two, before Halyn caught her arm and pulled her forward again, an irritated frown on her face but she didn’t say a word as she released her arm. The witch came to stand in front of Kaya, barely three feet between them. Sweat beading on her brow, nails digging into her palms and tongue held tight between her incisors so not to scream, Kaya kept her eyes down to the ground where she could see the flowing white dress move in the peculiar wind. She saw one of the witch’s hands raise up and instantly felt the pressure of power behind the manoeuvre in the air before it took action and forced her chin to look up, right at those eyes of nothingness.

“Do not be afraid,” the witch spoke, the first time Kaya had heard such a thing. Her voice was gentle yet deeper than she expected, trilled with an accent she could not place. “You already know what happens next. You have tasted the pleasure the wolves have to offer.” She looked up at the sky for a moment and drew in a deep breath, speaking next on an exhale. “They offer so much more, they have magic in their blood. Old magic of times long past.” Finally turning from Kaya and moving to stand to one side so she could look back at the stone platform, she gestured out at the entire clearing. “And now, you will see how we do it.”

With that said, her form withered into its wispy mist of blue light and smoke, becoming hazier and hazier until it disappeared completely. Kaya released a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. It came out shaky and wracked with apprehension, her body already feeling exhausted from its near constant state of tension that the last day and a half had offered.

“One comes,” Halyn’s low voice broke Kaya’s inner turmoil and when she glanced at the taller woman next to her, followed her gaze that was fixed on the furthest away point of the clearing. “This one is strong.” Movement from between the torches had Kaya’s stomach clench in fear. 

_Please, don’t be the white wolf._ Kaya wasn’t sure she could stand there and watch that hideous creature mate with the petite woman on the platform, not without losing the meagre contents of her stomach. 

However, to her somewhat relief, it wasn’t the vile white werewolf that emerged from the treeline, but a darker form that slowly made its way over on all fours. For one awful second, Kaya thought it might be Jaycen, finally caught in the web of the witch’s power, but as the creature drew nearer and was easier to make out in the minimal lighting, Kaya could see this werewolf was a very dark mix of midnight black and chocolate brown.

The torchlights that illuminated his figure better allowed Kaya to see his eyes; they were of the deepest blue ringed with a thread of silver around his iris. They were enchanting and profound yet held a dreamlike stare that was fixed on Tara on the platform. It was like he saw nothing else but her. Once he reached the edge of the platform, he rose to his hind legs and in doing so, the women in the circle dropped to their knees. The perfect synchronisation of it made Kaya jump a little.

Kaya watched as the werewolf licked his lips, his long pink tongue covering his nose and the sides of his mouth with a delicate swipe. She thought it so odd to see other werewolves that she held no care for. This one, although he looked similar to Jaycen in his overall form, was a stranger, a dangerous one. Kaya suddenly recalled Agnes’ voice in her mind with the declaration of _hundreds_ that roamed the forests in this area. They were all shapeshifting ones too, able to switch back to a human form that Jaycen hadn’t had for years. A small flicker of anger sparked in Kaya’s chest, finally quelling some of the dread. The pregnant woman back at the camp, Jasmine, and this woman about to be bred to this wolf, Tara, may have and be about to _taste the pleasure_ of a werewolf, but they did not know the love or devotion of one. All she could see here, was potent lascivious lust.

Stooping low enough to rest his hands on the stone, Kaya watched as the claws of the wolf easily scratched straight through the stone, proving her earlier point she remembered mentioning to Lizette and realising it must be Halyn and her magic abilities who did the clean-up afterwards. 

In this position, the wolf’s large head moved up Tara’s bent knees before she slowly lowered them, parting them as wide as she could and exposing herself to him. He sighed, a deep sound that was loud enough to be heard over the monotonous chanting that was slowly decreasing in pitch and tempo. The werewolf shifted forward and licked up the inside of a creamy thigh to reach the delicacy of the centre, causing a moan of pleasure and satisfaction to fill the space of the clearing. They seemed to echo over and over, growing in their volume as the women being ravished was so aroused prior to getting started that her orgasm was a rapid thing, rushing at her in full force as she writhed and squirmed with the wolf’s tongue deep in her hole. He didn’t stop for several seconds after she came, lavishing attention on her clit and overstimulating the organ in such a way the women screamed in delight.

When he finally stopped, his own arousal evident and heavy between his legs, it was only to carefully take the woman by her hips and move her down towards him. In his standing position, his hips lined up perfectly with hers and the woman gasped at the sight of his turgid cock. She reached down to take it in one hand, fisting it up and down a few times which the werewolf allowed her to do, head tilting back and eyes falling closed. The women rested his cock over her belly where it reached her navel and half laughed and half groaned with wanton need, her desire to have it inside her completely overwhelming all other senses.

The werewolf took his cock in his hand and rubbed himself against the wet hole he had devoured with his tongue. This woman was wild for him, she wanted nothing else and she pushed against the wolf’s hips, trying to spear herself on him in an effort to get him up inside her. After a few more moments of teasing, he did just that.

As forcefully as was possible without causing pain, the werewolf pushed himself inside her. The tight heat of her walls rapidly unclenching around him to assist entry before they clamped down as hard they could the moment he was buried as far as he would go. For the moment, just his knot lay outside her body, but that would soon change. He pulled back a little, pushed back in, out then back in. The woman underneath him sighed in pleasure at the slow drag, her legs coming up to rest over his hips, her hands twining in her hair. She seemed to suck him in every time he pushed forward which deemed her ready for the real show to begin.

The pace quickened and the wet sound of skin slapping together filled the clearing alongside the wails of exuberant feminine pleasure. With his hips pounding hard and fast, the woman took all of what he was giving her. She held no fear, no resistance and her inner cavern opened wonderfully to take and welcome the rougher treatment. The tip of the wolf’s cock was kissing her cervix, he could feel it. The gateway to her womb was steadily yielding with each advance as he readied her body for the hot load he was going to give her. Balls tightening with the thought, the werewolf leaned forward a little, one hand releasing the woman’s hip as he moved it to rest next to her head. In this lower position, he got closer to her face and neck, daring to graze a sharp canine over her collarbone and swiping his tongue up her exposed throat.

The woman was screaming now, unable to control the intensity of her voice as she clenched hard around the solid cock inside her. A second orgasm was right there, so close, just a few more thrusts and _yes!_

Her hands came up to grab the shoulders of the werewolf above her, soft fur tightly balled in her fists as she was fucked through her orgasm, all her nerve endings floating on a cloud of euphoria. Her vision was foggy, she could barely make out the form above her and was glad to have finally touched her partner, confirming that she wasn’t in some erotic dream that she never wanted to end.

The knot at the base of the wolf’s cock was pulsing, he was close and it was catching on the rim of her hole, making her twist in place, hips gyrating. She said a few words in a voice gravelly with pleasure, they all sounded the same;

_Breed me, breed me, please!_

Oh yes, she will be bred. She was going to take all his seed and her belly would swell with his pups.

He sat up a little, knowing it was time as his hips found the perfect angle to do this. His eyes fell closed as he focused on the soft feel of her cervix against his tip. It was giving easily under pressure, welcoming him deeper. It felt _so good,_ it was an addicting feeling that he would definitely need to feel again and soon. Sparing a side glance away from the woman underneath him, he saw many others with the same eager look on their face. They all wanted to be bred like this, such divine creatures.

When the woman released her grip on his shoulders, they went to clasp on either side of the platform she was resting upon, her legs moving from his hips to as far apart as she could get them. Her walls undulated around his swollen length and with a final hard shove, he felt the tip of his cock push past her cervix, knot wedging at the base of her vagina and swelling to lock them together.

Hot spurt after hot spurt, the woman didn’t keep count as she felt the heavy weight of the wolf’s ejaculate gush up inside her. He was so _deep,_ nothing had ever been that deep and although the pressure of him getting past that final barrier inside her had hurt for the smallest of moments, it was now nothing but a pleasurable warmth as she felt everything the wolf gave her settle in her womb where it belonged. She traced one hand over breasts and further down her stomach, coming to rest under her navel. 

The werewolf threw his head back, howling in delight as he let himself go, hips gently making small circular movements as he revelled in the feeling of his knot being held fast in the base of her channel. It wouldn’t allow a drop to spill and would not deflate until he had given her everything he had to offer. Even then, it would remain for a few minutes after while it settled inside her. Relaxing a little to regard his temporary mate, he ran his hands up her sides, careful not to catch his claws on her milky skin. She was such a delicate looking thing but she took it so well, was still taking it well. A spaced out look was on her face, eyes half shut as she gazed at the sky, her mouth slightly open on a smile revealing perfect white teeth and a dainty pink tongue. He looked at the hand she had resting on her lower belly, marvelling how it there was the tiniest curve to it where her womb was filling with his seed.

The woman didn’t keep track of how long it took for the werewolf to completely finish, it wasn’t important. By the time he was done, carefully slipping out of when his knot shrunk and making her gasp, she was so blissed out that she didn’t see him leave. She had felt a parting lick between her folds but once he had done that, the werewolf had returned to the forest and left her sated and full. She was small in stature so the rise in her belly was obvious, the heaviness to it pleasant and warming from the inside out. The air that had been warmed with the buzz of magic the ritual had created began to cool, easing her sore muscles and coaxed her to want to sleep. Gentle hands from the other women cooled her further with damp clothes, wiping away any residue fluids and carefully pulling her dress back onto her. With legs like jelly, she had to be carried by four women who helped lift her from the platform and back into the forest towards the camp.

Kaya, having witnessed it all, watched silently from her position at the edge of the circle, a mix of shocked horror, turbulent curiosity and traitorous arousal clawing its way through her. She hated these women, they were nothing but slaves to their impulses and the witch’s but they had not been afraid, they were very much willing subjects. They wanted to be fucked, filled up and bred until they had a litter of pups to care for and then most likely do it all over again.

The inquisitive side of her, deep down, wanted to know every aspect of what would happen during a ritual and she had gotten just that. She had experienced it first hand, curiosity sated and complete yet Kaya wasn’t pleased with herself.

What she hated the most, what displeased her the most, was that she must have looked just like that woman, like Tara, when she had first had sex with Jaycen. She had screamed and moaned obscenely and asked him, _give it to me, I can take it._ Although at the time she didn’t know she was being bred, she had loved every minute of it. After their bout of morning sex in the early hours of the dawn within their cave, Kaya had admitted to herself that she wanted it again. She wanted more pups with Jaycen, she wanted to add to their family. The fiercely stubborn flare of arousal was nothing but her body talking for her instead of her mind. Watching the mating, watching how much both sides had wanted it, how they have given and took, she had felt herself grow wet with the imaginative thought that it was her laying there with Jaycen above her. 

Steered by Halyn back in line with everyone else, she watched the mage hang back and then approach the stone. Getting rid of the evidence, Kaya thought, making the stone surface smooth once more. The torches abruptly went out as she walked past them and caught up with everyone, smiling at Kaya in such a practiced way she was sure it was actually hurting Halyn’s face to do so.

Facing forward again, Kaya felt the back of her nose grow hot, eyes stinging in protest as she refused to allow any sound to escape her throat, she refused to show any weakness no matter how hopeless she felt. Heart aching for the safety of Jaycen’s arms and the newfound voices of her children she wondered to herself just how, in this world that the Gods created at the dawn of time before leaving to live in the stars, was she going to escape from this?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pushed to their limits, Kaya, Jaycen and Lizette finally confront the witch and everything she stands for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: bloody violence ahead.
> 
> I can't believe it's taken me this long to write this damn chapter! For some reason, it was difficult because although I knew WHAT I wanted to say, I just didn't know HOW to write it. Drove me nuts. Anyway! As a result, if it's shit, I AM SORRY. The tail end of this chapter is just a big ball of fighting. And then a surprise. Enjoy a mammoth chapter :D

Slumped against the rough wooden wall of the cabin, Kaya scratched a point of the fork she had been given to eat the untouched food on the plate at the bottom of the bed, to scratch a fourth straight line into the wood. It yielded easily under the relatively blunt implement, reacting more to how forcefully Kaya was pushing against it than how very sharp it wasn’t. The line was barely the length of her little finger, carefully placed next to the edge of the stone fireplace and not obvious enough that anyone would see it. It marked the fourth day that Kaya had been in the cultist camp and with each passing hour, try as she might, she felt a little more hopeless. Despair was sinking in, its claws beginning to break the skin beyond the pointed marks it was leaving. It was now trying to eat its way into her soul, drag her down and leave her at the bottom of the deepest and darkest of pits. Surely, either Jaycen or Lizette would have gone to her house, found it empty and used their initiative? Though very different people, they were smart and what’s more, Lizette was a mage, an old one, surely she could use her magic to track her down? 

Her time was running out. Agnes, in her twisted glee at Kaya’s presence in the cult, had cheerfully exclaimed that tomorrow it was finally _her turn._ Kaya felt beyond afraid, the blood in her veins a constant pulsing thing as her chest ached with the force of it. She was fearful for not only the outcome of coupling with a werewolf, but for what werewolf she would be forced to couple with. Deep down, she knew, she _knew_ that the witch would pair her with the hideous white wolf she had seen that day in the clearing. It would surely bring the witch her own twisted pleasure to watch Kaya be taken by that creature that haunted her dreams, both waking and asleep.

Forcing her rising panic back down from its attempt to strangle her once more, Kaya finished scraping the fourth line into the wall and threw the fork onto the bed, the sound of it clinking against the plate loud in the darkness of the cabin. Kaya dragged herself to the feet, uninterested in whatever food it was that the plate held and instead, let herself lean heavy against the boarded up windows. The gaps between the planks of wood her only source of light in the waning gibbous moon, the silver light it reflected making the magic shield around the camp twinkle like the surface of a great body of water.

It flickered gently, strange pale hues of blue and green shimmering across the surface. In a way, it was hypnotising, and Kaya felt like she could watch it forever with the way the patterns swirled and danced.

Like the water it resembled, it suddenly flickered, like a stone breaking an otherwise calm surface. Kaya blinked, unsure if she had imagined it or not, until it did it again. Ripples across the surface of the bubble-like shield and an odd cracking sound followed, making Kaya jump back from the window. All the cabins were positioned on the edge of the small camp and the women inside them ran into the centre, gathering around the fire pit and talking among themselves. 

Pressing herself flush against the window once more and peering through the gaps like a child peeking to see something they shouldn’t, Kaya was suddenly struck with a feeling of rage so wild and intense, it made her stagger. Chest burning, a gripping feeling of tightness that threatened to crush her ribs and lungs within, Kaya grasped on the boards covering the window so fiercely, she wrenched it free. For one awful moment of terror that clenched low in her gut, Kaya thought this was the witch playing with her again, but no…

Staring down at her hands, she felt the fury inside her wither. This wasn’t an emotion that belonged to her. In fact, it felt so much like – 

A roar, so deep and _angry_ that it made Kaya’s bones hum with its intensity, split through the air a moment later. From the window, she saw the shield protecting the camp ripping apart like paper tearing, it even had the strange cracking to accompany it and with an almighty _SNAP_ , the shield burst apart and disappeared. 

Jaycen!

Kaya’s realisation that her partner was so close she had heard and _felt_ his roar like he had been right behind her, Kaya screamed his name, throwing her weight into the window. Perhaps in the euphoria of the moment, she thought she felt the ground shake. It splint the boards in the window, shards of wood cracking into the air like twigs in a breeze. There was no way she was that strong…

It happened again as Kaya stood still, wondering what was happening. A massive shift in the earth, the ethereal shield above the camp having already yielded to whatever onslaught was occurring, Kaya almost fell with the force of it. Seconds later, the roar she had heard earlier was in the air again, yet much more localised. Kaya felt the weary stone of the cabin’s old fireplace beneath her palm as she found herself flattened against it, eyes fixed on the door. It shuddered as if heaving a tremendous breath, once, twice, before it finally gave under the weight from the other side.

A mass of black filled the space and Kaya closed her eyes for a moment in her terror before she realised what – _who_ – it was that had shoved their way through. In all his glory with obsidian fur and yellow eyes, Jaycen stood with his claws and teeth bared, chest heaving and eyes ablaze, surrounded by the remnants of a door shattered. Kaya was sure the relief she felt seize her chest was a mix of her own and her lover’s as she threw herself into his arms. 

He welcomed her, a deep and pleased growl pushing itself from the depths of his lungs. It vibrated up her arms and into her core, making tears sting at her eyes. Jaycen was _here_ , how was that possible? 

With just a look, he had positioned her at arms’ length, eyes glazing into a mix of worried severity and it just took a second for Kaya to understand what he meant; _let’s go!_

With one wrist grasped in his claws, Kaya let herself both be pulled and guided out of the cabin and into the chaos of the camp.

Screams, that was the first thing she heard, followed by the smell of burning wood and smoke. The two cabins either side of the central fire were alight, the orange flames twisting their way up the sides of the structures. They had engulfed the centre, as if they had started there and were simply finishing their job up the outside of the building. 

At the far end of the camp, Kaya watched in awe as the porch of the final cabin twitched harshly, before lifting itself off the ground completely. It slammed back down with great force and snapped completely it two, bits of wood flying in every direction. At first, Kaya thought the cabin itself had been targeted, but as she watched while being pulled down the steps that led to her own forceful domain, she realised it was the ground that was the target. 

The campfire in the centre had been swallowed by a sinkhole, a gaping darkness in the earth that made Kaya recoil when her eyes set upon it. Flashes of white entered her vision and it took a moment for her to realise they were the cultist women, fleeing in terror.

Jaycen ushered Kaya to the left out from the cabin she had been in, the ground shaking once more and nearly making her lose her footing. The weight on her arm didn’t let her fall and it enabled her to spare a glance back as the camp moved into the distance. 

Just before the thick trees blocked her view, she saw Lizette. It was hard to make out her facial expression, but she watched as the mage raised a fist into the air before slamming it hard into the ground, as if she were trying to reach into the flesh of the earth itself. Blood splattered up towards her face, but the impact had the desired effect and the ground shaking movement happened again.

The trees finally blocked her view, as Kaya was made to follow Jaycen into the forest by the grip on her wrist. She ran as fast as her feet would carry her, a mix of adrenaline and fear roiling in her gut and pushing her onwards. However, Jaycen didn’t get far before he was forced to stop. Almost colliding with him, Kaya’s arm came free and she looked in the direction Jaycen was, his lips pulled back and an evil snarl ripping its way free.

Revealing itself from behind the mass of a redwood, the white werewolf moved himself in their exit, his thinner frame and pale fur illuminated by the moonlight. Dark red eyes gleamed, their gaze flicking between Jaycen and Kaya, the strange werewolf blocked their way and he knew it. His answering growl to Jaycen’s was equally as deep, just as intimidating. Without giving her a chance to understand, Jaycen pushed Kaya away from him in the direction of the trees to her right. Her surprised exclamation muted by a hand covering her mouth as she was kept on her feet by whoever had caught her.

“Shhh!” Lizette. 

Kaya could hardly believe the mage was standing there, how had she found her? Lizette didn’t give Kaya any time to debate and wonder as she removed her hand but did what Jaycen had done and drag her through the trees. It was difficult, the darkness of the night and the lack of moonlight through the thick canopy made navigating the forest more than a chore as she caught herself on almost every gnarled root and stray branch. As she ran after Lizette her hands were muddied, her knees grazed and cheeks scratched when suddenly, a blur of white flashed in front Lizette, cutting the mage off and bringing her to a stop.

The white werewolf sprang into a gap between two tree trunks, his eyes blazing crimson and with a deep breath, he roared at Kaya and Lizette. The mage didn’t back down however, instead clenching her fists and yelling in frustration as she called flame to her hands. Kaya watched in awe as Lizette threw her hands forward, a torrent of fire spewing forth like it might from the mouth of a dragon. It set light to the grassy ground, the bushes, the trees, everything it touched. Twisting in its mesmerising whirl, it spread left and right, effectively cutting off the werewolf from flanking them before it climbed several feet high to stop him jumping over it. It happened so fast, Kaya jumped when Lizette took hold of her arm again, pulling her in a different direction.

“It won’t keep him long, let’s go!”

She didn’t argue, instead leaping over a large low branch and hearing a tearing noise as part of her dress ripped free at the base. 

_I don’t think so._

Kaya heard the whispering heavy voice of the witch as if it were right behind her. It made her stagger, head looking left and right as she tried and failed to see where it had come from. Lizette must have heard it too as the mage faltered in her hurried pace, chest heaving and sweat beading on her brow as she flattened herself with her back to a tree trunk.  
The shrill piercing cry of the black and white crows sounded overhead and when Kaya looked up through a gap in the greenery, she saw hundreds, perhaps even thousands of them flying above. Their cries a cacophony of ear splitting noise, she only just heard the menacing roar of the white werewolf before he appeared once again.

Where was Jaycen?

Several of the birds dove through the gap in the trees, Kaya and Lizette only having seconds to react as the birds dive-bombed them, their sharp beaks and talons breaking the skin and catching in hair.

Kaya didn’t hesitate to run once more, lungs burning and legs complaining about having to leap like a horse over the difficult terrain. Just up ahead, Kaya realised with a sinking heart that both the werewolf and the birds had brought them to the forest clearing. Lit with the torches like it had been when Kaya saw it just a few nights ago, she ran until she half collapsed against the cold surface of the altar, Lizette only just behind her.

The sky had turned the inky mix of red and black like it had been in her vision, causing fear to grip in Kaya’s stomach and set her blood to ice. Several of the cultist women had appeared in the space around them, emerging from the trees like a mist. To Kaya’s utmost horror, they all appeared to be mages; dark blue energy humming around their bodies. Damning her inability to sense them once more, she felt the heat of Lizette’s magic flare to life beside her and before the other women could so much as blink, Lizette had flung her magic outwards towards them.

The snapping sound her power made was like that of lightning, its bright flash almost exactly the same as it lit up the clearing brighter than the sun could ever do, the blast directing itself towards three of the woman simultaneously. When hit, they were cast backwards by the force of it, bodies twitching on the ground but otherwise motionless.

The ones still alive retaliated, their magic rushing forth to attack but hit nothing but the ethereal shield Lizette summoned to protect them. Kaya heard her yell something in her native tongue, unable to understand it but definitely catching the aggressive tone as she called forth the lighting again.

Caught between the mages, Kaya scanned her eyes around for an exit. There was no way she could just run to one side where some of the women now lay dead; Lizette couldn’t fight them and protect her escape at the same time. Dropping to her hands and knees, Kaya crawled around the altar’s base, distantly hearing the shrieking birds circling in the red sky above. If she made a break for it, they would surely dive at her again. A mass of white caught her attention straight ahead as the pale werewolf crawled out of the forest and into the clearing.

Kaya froze in place, breath catching in her throat as she watched in terror at the hideous movement the werewolf displayed; he literally crawled low to the ground, his gangly limbs bending harshly and mouth wide open, all his teeth on display as he dragged himself forward. A peculiar hissing sound burst from his throat, a black tongue rolling forwards and out of his mouth, unnaturally long. It twitched and writhed and Kaya could hardly hold back a scream as it formed into an ugly snake, it eyes matching the blood red of those the wolf already had. It continued to extend, now at least three feet from the gaping maw as it slithered from the werewolf’s mouth and onto the ground.

Kaya quickly shuffled back as the ghastly creature began making its way to her, its strange sideways movement just as unnatural as the crawling the werewolf had just done moments ago. Her back hit the stone altar hard enough that her head connected with it and pushed the breath from her lungs. She tried to form Lizette’s name, she tried to scream, tried to reach back to grab at her and warn her it was coming closer and closer.

The hissing intensified, the snake’s mouth opened and it curled into an _S_ shape, ready to strike. Kaya drew in a breath, frozen in place.

A bolt of white singed the creature before it could bite Kaya, its entire body exploding into dust as dark as the scales it bore which quickly blew away in the wind the blast had created. Kaya felt Lizette’s hand grasp her upper arm and help her to her feet. Behind the mage, the collapsed bodies of the cultists lay as still as only death could manage.

Kaya could see Lizette was tired if her skin shining in perspiration and shallow rise and fall of her chest was anything to go on. But now they had another problem; the white werewolf was still going strong, despite his snake-tongue being destroyed. Kaya watched him clamber with some difficulty to his hind legs, shoulders sagging for a moment before he righted himself. It was like watching a marionette be pulled up by its strings…

“Take this,” Lizette pushed a small neat dagger by its leather bound hilt into one of Kaya’s hands. “It will only hinder rather than kill, but it’s better than nothing.”

“You can’t fight that thing by yourself,” Kaya reasoned. “You’re exhausted.”

“We can’t outrun it either,” Lizette never took her eyes off the werewolf as the creature watched them, began taking small steps forward with his eyes on the prize.

Where _was_ Jaycen!?

“Run, Kaya.” Lizette moved in front of her, magic gathering itself for what Kaya realised, might be the final time. 

“I’m not leaving you here!”

“You must. The women are dead and the way is clear, but I don’t know for how much longer. You have to go, now!” But Kaya shook her head. She may not have magic at her fingertips or inhuman strength in her body, but there was no way she could just leave Lizette on her own. If the mage fell, she would never forgive herself for not trying to help. From the moment Kaya met her, Lizette had been nothing but nice to her when she had no real reason to be. Their mutual interests initially being the only thing bringing them together, but it went way beyond that now. Lizette was her friend, one of the very few Kaya had and after everything the mage had helped her with in the years she had known her, Kaya refused to simply leave her behind.

She gripped the hilt of the dagger, its weight comforting in her grasp as she moved aside to regard the werewolf once more. She was tired of running from this monster.

“Come on then, you ugly beast.” Kaya taunted it and it worked, the werewolf crouching down into position…

…and leapt. 

A barrelling mass of black caught the werewolf in mid-air and forced it to crash into the ground, rolling several times. Disoriented, the wolf roared but this time, an equally ticked off sound answered just the same.

Jaycen.

He completely ignored Kaya and Lizette in favour of leaping at the opposing werewolf once more, claws bared and although his prey tried to move out of the way, Jaycen swiped his claws in a vicious arch that sliced through the meat of a pale shoulder. Blood sprayed in the air in a red mist that sent the white werewolf staggering back on a howl, but a second later, it cut off and he swung low at Jaycen. The awkward abrupt movements continued as they fought, Jaycen easily being able to dodge the incoming attacks, but no matter how much he clawed and bit at the werewolf, it just kept coming.

It was a mindless bleeding thing that should not have been standing with the amount of blood that soaked the ground. It squelched under Jaycen’s feet as he threw his weight forward, knocking the white wolf into his back and quickly sinking his teeth into its neck. With a rough twisting movement, Jaycen ripped the head of the werewolf from its shoulders. With so much of its blood already spilled, what should have been a torrent wave was nothing but a weak pulse, the sight unsettling as the white body of the werewolf stained in red finally came to a stop. Jaycen moved back from it, angling towards the altar where Kaya and Lizette still stood. Finding herself slightly in both awe and fear of him, for Kaya had _never_ seen Jaycen truly fight like she had only read that he could do, she went to reach a hand out to him only for it to fall the moment she heard him growl.

The witch had come. Forming herself from the corpse of the massacred werewolf, the ball of blue mist rose from its body, taking the outline of a woman’s shape before coming completely to full form. Adorned in her simple piece of cloth that hugged her body, hiding everything and nothing, a vicious smile slowly made its way onto her beautiful face.

Kaya didn’t move, she was sure she wasn’t even breathing considering how tight her chest felt. Lizette was just as motionless beside her, only the hum of magic energy still lingering in its wavering strength. Kaya knew Lizette didn’t have much fight left in her and she had no idea about Jaycen. His body was tense yet his shoulders sagged, clearly spent from whatever fight he had been dealing with before he came to Kaya’s aid.

She still had the dagger, she realised. She could still at least, at the bare minimum, land a hit even she even could.

The witch’s focus moved to Jaycen and a second after it did, Lizette pulled Kaya back behind the body of the stone altar the same moment that the witch rushed forward in a blur of motion that took Jaycen completely by surprise. Kaya didn’t see what happened when the two collided as she practically fell to her side against the cold stone. She heard the sound of Jaycen’s rough exhale, a puff of air harshly forced from his lungs and when she raised her head, she saw him go flying backwards and rolling into a heap.

Panic flared through Kaya and she almost got up to run to him, remembering at the last minute, she was dead if she did so. The witch came into view, form very much a real solid thing, but Kaya knew she could change that at a moment’s notice. She was a master of the arcane arts; Jaycen was all strength and muscle. The two just didn’t mix so how could he possibly defeat her?

Lizette grabs Kaya’s shoulder. “She’s human.” Her voice is barely a whisper, Kaya didn’t even know it could get that low. She spins on the spot to face the mage.

“What…?”

“She’s human,” Lizette repeats. “What we see when she shows herself is actually what she looks like. I’ve seen it.”

_“How_ do you know this?” Kaya wants to yell the question but she forces her voice to remain low.

“I’ve seen it.” Lizette states as if that explains it all. It does and it doesn’t and this is neither the time nor the place for Lizette to continue. The dagger in her hand suddenly feels a lot heavier than it did before.

Jaycen had gotten to his feet, swiping out then quickly ducking low and out of the way of a surge of blue fire that left its image as an after-burn on Kaya’s eyelids. He was _fast,_ almost a century behind him of learning to control and move his large body faster than it should be able to and it helped Jaycen now more than ever. But the witch had had longer to practice her magic. She was already a powerful being one hundred years ago and now she was surely even more so. Fear gripped Kaya’s entire body, twisting into white hot anger. It wasn’t a fair fight, not with two different abilities clashing together with one clearly out-doing the other. Jaycen twisted and rolled, desperate to avoid being struck by the gathering inferno of flames.

Gripping the dagger’s hilt so hard she thought it might break, Kaya looked around the clearing. It was empty, apart from them. The vampire birds circled in a huge flock above in a red darkened sky, but the witch’s werewolf slave was dead and her minions, the cultists, had surely all been taken care of. Any remaining ones were nowhere to be found and the vile metallic smell of blood was so strong Kaya could taste it on the back of her tongue.

Jaycen howled, an awful sound of overwhelming pain and for a moment, Kaya swore she could feel almost exactly what he must be feeling. Arching from his bicep, over his left shoulder and onto his back, the blue fire scorched its way through Jaycen’s fur and into his skin. He collapsed to his knees, refusing to fall any further as the witch threw her head back and _laughed._

“I made you what you are! You’re no match for me, soldier of the king.” For a moment, the witch’s description of Jaycen went completely over her head before she realised she was referring to his old title, a lifetime ago.

Lighting, a blinding white and as hot as the sun on a summer’s day, arced through the air over Kaya’s head towards the witch. At the last moment, she turned, tried to block it but it hit, crackling so loud and with such force it ripped its way upward into the sky. The ominous red and black faltered, the hole the lightning created revealing an inky starlit blue underneath.

Kaya gaped for moment before she flattened herself harshly against the stone altar. It was an _illusion._

The witch was doing nothing but tricking their minds and it had Kaya’s head whirling with the possibilities of just what it was she thought to be real and what was false. Was the feminine image of the witch an actual thing? Or was it a fabrication of a deep recess of her mind? Could it even be a part of her mind that was manipulated to see what was before her? 

The witch had her fists closed, arms up to her chest as she prepared for another launch of ethereal fire. At the receiving end of her wrath, Jaycen lay twisting himself on the ground. It was when Kaya noticed, to her horror, that the witch was facing Lizette rather than him. 

Pale blue eyes flicked to her, looking right through her before rising back up to Lizette.

“You might be old, mage, but just like _him,_ you are also no match for someone like me.”

“You’re human.” Lizette’s accented voice rang through the bitter words the witch had thrown at her, as if she hadn’t even heard them. At the declaration, the witch had simply lifted her chin in defiance.

“Whatever I once was, I am not so now.” 

“You cannot escape what you really are.” Lizette was trying to distract her, that much was obvious to Kaya. Questioning her origins in such a way was enough to give Kaya the opportunity to start crawling towards the treeline. 

“But you can change it,” a thin wrist pointed back at the werewolf clutching his shoulder behind her, a cruel smile adorning her face. “I have mastered things in the dark corners that nobody dare to look. I can change what _is_ and what was once.” The witch threw her head back in a laugh that wasn’t at all forced, she was truly joyous of what she believed.

“You misunderstand,” Lizette interrupted the witch’s joy. “You might be able to change what you see, but not what you feel.” She looked to Jaycen then, her face full of a sympathy that Kaya had never seen before. 

Kaya had almost reached Jaycen, circling around from the treeline to where he was laying in the grass, right arm grasping his left shoulder so hard she thought he might be causing more damage than good. No blood fell to the ground for his injury was a burn not a tear; the stink of burnt flesh and singed hair so strong she could feel it at the back of her nose, was sure she would be smelling it for days after. Kaya, crawling on her hands and knees, reached out a hand to him.

The witch moved to stand directly opposite Lizette, eyes downcast and face showing a smirk that held promises of pain. “If that is the case,” she began, “then you won’t mind if I change another.” 

With the soft fur of Jaycen’s back under her palm, Kaya was pinned in place with the blue gaze of the witch staring right at her. She was grinning like a maniac, her perfect straight teeth showing in the beam of her smile. She raised her hand, a slender arm reaching out and a thin finger pointing at Kaya accusingly. Thin lips parted and she began to whisper in her floaty voice.

_“By thy pale beams I solitary rove,”_

Jaycen roared, an ear splitting sound that was deep from his chest. It was full of rage but there was something else Kaya couldn’t place. Fear? Sorrow?

Lizette went to move but without so much as sparing a glance back, the witch flicked her hand behind her and Lizette went _flying._ She collided with the edge of the altar, the crack that sounded Kaya wasn’t sure if it were Lizette’s bones or the granite surface.

_“To thee my tender grief confide,”_

The witch continued speaking, and the pulsing pain, now so familiar, ripped through Kaya’s head again. She felt sick to her stomach, her skin felt itchy and she clenched both her jaw and her fists as hard as she could as she finally caught up to what the witch was doing. 

In her right hand, she felt the hilt of the dagger press its firmness back against her skin, as if reminding her of its solidarity. Now on her knees, back bending as she hunched forward, Kaya spared a glance to Jaycen and saw the fear in his inhuman eyes. He was afraid for her, despite the pain he was in from the burn on his shoulder and the way he set his jaw as he looked back at Kaya, he was still afraid. Kaya realised he must be more afraid than she was in that moment.

She watched as Jaycen’s eyes flicked down to the dagger, then quickly across to where the witch was standing. Kaya understood at once, saw the way Jaycen gathered his legs underneath him, ready to strike.

_“Serenely sweet you gild the silent grove,”_

They couldn’t let her finish. If she did, the curse of the wolf would be upon Kaya and her life would never be the same again. They were trying to undo it, not start it anew! Throat burning with the urge to vomit, Kaya swallowed her rising gorge, feeling anger flushing through her entire body as her veins ran hot with the promise of finally ending this. Years of searching, years of tried and failed attempts to every what way she and Lizette discovered. They had learned more about the history of werewolves and other creatures of this world than they could ever hope to share to others and Kaya wasn’t ready to stop now. There was so much more she still had to learn.

Her children needed her, they deserved to be cured and live their lives in the world outside of the cave and the forest. They could learn to read and write, ride a horse, cook food, gaze upon the ivory spires within Erstweald’s capital, they could even travel across the land. Wherever they wanted to go and whatever they wanted to do, Kaya would be behind them.

Leaning on her hands, Kaya slid the hilt of the dagger down so the shining blade was clasped in her palm.

_“My friend,”_

She sat up, arm pulled back, eyes on the witch’s deceptively youthful face.

_“My goddess,”_

Kaya threw the knife, hearing the whistle of it as it cut through the air. Her inexperience of such an act was felt in the red line of stinging pain that flared in her palm as she released the blade.

_“And my -”_

The witch had not the time to react in the casting of her spell, the blade striking and sinking into the flesh of chest with a wet _thud._ Her final word was cut off, the evil magic ceasing in its flow so abruptly, it made Kaya gasp as if she had been held underwater. The itching feeling of her skin relented, the burning in her head melting away. Kaya felt herself sob in exhaustion and the sound came out strained like she had swallowed glass.

The witch froze. Her mouth agape as the look of shock took over her features and looked incredibly out of place. 

In a whir of movement even faster than the dagger finding its target, Jaycen threw himself at the witch, yellow eyes gleaming like the sun at the dawn of a winter’s day. His teeth were bared, sinking firmly into the neck of the witch and his weight crushed her to the ground. She screamed, a hollow sound that tore through the air and made the birds above scatter higher and disperse.

_She’s human._ Kaya recalled the words Lizette had said to her only minutes ago as she watched a fountain of blood erupt from the vice grip Jaycen’s teeth had around the throat of the witch. He yanked his head sideways, tugging harshly and ripping flesh and veins to spill blood the same colour as the sky. Blue flame swirled to her hands as the witch grabbed at Jaycen’s shoulders, over his already injured one and Kaya winced at the action, unsure how he was able to completely ignore the burning sensation he must be feeling. The flames singed at his fur, sank into his skin and tried to melt it, but they flickered before withering away completely.

Jaycen’s head pulled back again and the witch’s screaming intensified but it was a gurgling grotesque sound as she choked on her own blood. It soaked the ground in a torrent that reminded Kaya of the one she had seen in her vision.

When Jaycen tugged back for a third time, the sickening sounds of skin tearing and bone crunching was all Kaya could hear. The witch’s agonising wail was abruptly stopped as Jaycen fought to hold her down and rip her head from her shoulders, the same way he had done with the white wolf. Kaya knew he was strong, had felt it in his arms and back when he had picked her up or held her down, she knew his natural strength had been amplified by his curse. Instead of yielding to it and living a life of self-loathing, he had bent it to his will.

It had only taken a few moments for Kaya to throw the knife and for Jaycen to blindside her and when the screaming and the feeble attempt to fight back ceased, he had the witch’s head hanging from his mouth. Her face seemed to hold the same surprised look but like the other emotions Kaya had witnessed in the times she had seen her, it didn’t reach her eyes. They were as cold and hard as the granite of the altar. Jaycen dropped the head and Kaya watched it roll for a second before she realised how quiet it had become. Without the birds above screeching their hunger for blood, the forest clearing was as silent as it could ever get. Kaya went to stand, but just as she did, a shaking force rocked the ground.

Landing on her side, Kaya watched the witch’s body twitch several times before it exploded in much the same way it had for Jaycen all those years ago, the same way it had drenched her in gore in her mind. Her entire body, bones, muscles, veins, hair, teeth, sinew, tendons, _everything._ A macabre firework that reached its final moments covered Kaya and Jaycen in the liquid that was as cold as water that had frozen to ice. Expecting it to be hot, or at least warm, Kaya flinched away and saw Jaycen do the same. The blood ran into the earth that cracked, splintered like wood and shoved itself outward as it created a gaping hole to swallow the witch’s remains. The cracks moved out further, reaching for Kaya as she scrambled back and out of the way.

The earth trembled again, the illusion of the blood red sky breaking open to reveal the black of the night and the stars underneath. Kaya rolled to the side, avoiding a void in the ground as she spied Jaycen moving towards her. His good arm wrapped around her waist as he half picked her up and half dragged Kaya away from the where the witch had fallen. The trembling of the earth making it hard to run as he manoeuvred his way around and back towards the altar where Lizette was laying. The mage was unconscious and unmoving, but alive.

The relief of that realisation lasted only a moment as another explosion, this time of the air and earth combined, pushed outwards and rippled through the forest clearing. It brought Jaycen to his knees and he roared in pain, dropping Kaya before grabbing at his head, pulling at his fur. The noise and movement jolted Lizette awake and she pushed herself upright as the clearing began to literally fall apart. 

“We have to go! Now!” Kaya yelled over the sound of mud and grass and rocks tumbling together. She hauled Lizette to her feet, supporting her arm as the mage steadied herself on the uneven ground. The cracks spread out like a spider’s web, heading for the altar and Kaya pulled Lizette into a jog towards the treeline and catching her other hand on Jaycen’s arm.

But he didn’t move. He roared again, a wild feral sound that had Kaya letting go of his arm and had fear rush through her. He spun in place, pupils narrowed to slits but the rest of his expression was pained and confused.

“Jaycen?” Kaya heard herself whisper his name even as her feet carried her backwards. Pressing flush against a tree, Jaycen had her cornered. Lizette was in her peripheral vision but she sagged to the ground, exhausted. And why would she think something was wrong? Jaycen was Kaya’s partner, the father of their children. He was a good person, kind and loving and protective yet at that moment, Kaya looked into the eyes of a werewolf and didn’t know the creature looking back at her.

She was about to speak his name again when he wrenched himself away as if he had been stung. He groaned, _wailed_ in pain and grabbed at his head again as a blast of air sang through the clearing and into the trees. The ground was eating itself, the stone altar in the centre being swallowed by the earth as the sinkholes widened and allowed it to slip through, to disappear completely from sight. Further back behind it, the blood soaked stain of the witch was also gone, nowhere to be seen as the holes and cracks took everything they touched. There wasn’t much earth left to stand on that hadn’t been touched by the releasing of the life that was the witch.

But it was affecting Jaycen now more than when she had been alive.

Kaya could hear his laboured breathing, his noises of pain and confusion mingling into a pitiful sound. She didn’t know how to help him. What could she do? Overwhelming sorrow engulfed Kaya as she realised; the curse was breaking.

Was Jaycen going to die? Was the witch going to take him down with her?

He fell to his knees, curling in on himself, arms wrapping around to clutch at his sides as his entire body lit up in the blue flame the witch has used earlier.

“No!” Kaya screamed, running to Jaycen even as Lizette staggered forward to try and stop her. She expected the heat of the fire to be too much to bear, but she felt nothing as she sank to her knees in front of Jaycen and grabbed his large head in her hands. As quick as a viper, he snatched her wrists in his hands and _squeezed._

Kaya heard herself shriek and felt herself pull away but he didn’t let go. He squeezed harder so her bones creaked, any second they would break. She was sure at least one did when the blue fire became too bright to keep her eyes open any longer and a shockwave of energy, of magic, threw her backwards and into the forest. Kaya hit something, a tree, a gnarled root, a rock, something solid enough that all the air was pushed from her lungs with such force she couldn’t breathe. There was no air to draw back in, no light from the fire to hurt her eyes. 

Only darkness and silence.

***

A hand on her forehead and touching her face brought Kaya back to consciousness. The air was cold, her face felt wet and her left wrist was numb with pain all the way up to her elbow. Opening her eyes was effort but when she did, Kaya realised it was the gently falling snow making her skin turn to ice.

Lizette hovered next to her, crouching down and looking very old. Her skin was sallow and taught, she had a split lip, a cut on her head that had bled down the side of her face and the skin of her right hand looked as if it had been burned like charcoal. Nonetheless, she helped Kaya to sit up, supporting her back. Kaya clutched her left arm to her carefully, biting her lip with the pain that flared through it. 

“I think my arm is broken.” Lizette looked down at it, at the strange angle the joint of her wrist was positioned in and winced.

“It appears so, I’m not much of a healer though. I never was.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it for now.” Kaya didn’t think the way it was steadily getting increasingly numb was a good thing but it helped with keeping her arm still. It brought her to scan the surroundings and the now eerily quiet forest. She was laying in the grass at the edge of the clearing, having just missed colliding with a tree when she was flung backwards. The shattered ground had taken the witch’s body and the altar down with it, leaving scorched grass and rocks in peculiar places where they weren’t before. What was once a smooth piece of flat grassland had been destroyed by the force of the magic that had carved its way through.

The sky was its usual inky black with countless stars shining above. The waning moon was bright enough that Kaya could see even though the torches around the edge of the clearing had long gone out. And that was when she saw him.

Curled into a ball under the bough of a large redwood that almost hid him from sight with its bold shadow, the dark heap that was Jaycen lay still.

Without so much as a second thought, Kaya forced her legs to take action and get her moving to him as fast as she could. She didn’t know she could feel so tired, her whole body ached. But Jaycen had been _on fire._ It was obviously magic that had engulfed him, but what had it done?

As Kaya approached, she slowed when what she saw was not a werewolf in the grass.

It was a man. A human man.

Kaya blinked hard, feeling that if she did, her eyes would not be deceived. But nothing changed. Where Jaycen had been thrown from the force of the blast was this exact spot. Kaya sank to her knees beside him, a sick feeling in her gut at the possibility that he might be dead. What was she going to do without him? There would be a very empty space in her heart that would never be filled if Jaycen were to leave her now. Without wanting them to, she felt her eyes grow watery with unshed tears, the back of her nose burning with the urge to cry. She reached out her right hand and touched Jaycen’s shoulder, to find it warm and supple under her touch.

When Jaycen groaned, shifting a little in place, the tears spilled over without care.

“Jaycen?” Kaya whispered his name, shaking his shoulder a little. His skin, _human skin,_ was lightly tanned, something she could see even with just the weak light of the moon. He had hair, not fur, on his head. Long and ragged and black, it was tangled and course but it easily reached his shoulders, almost as long as Kaya’s. From where his head rested on its side, Kaya could make out his features; an aquiline nose, sharp jaw and bold brows that were pulled together in a frown. Jaycen had stubble on his face, as if he could never grow a beard even when he was human before. He groaned again, this time with a little more of a confused edge to the sound and opened his eyes to reveal the same wolf yellow that Kaya had always seen them.

Jaycen sat up so fast that Kaya fell on her backside, a startled gasp escaping her as she watched yellow eyes take in where he was before they fixed on her. He looked Kaya up and down, smiling gently before he realised how easy the action came to him. 

Kaya couldn’t escape the joy that bubbled in her chest as she watched Jaycen touch his face, then look at his hands like he didn’t know what they were. He opened his mouth to speak, but almost a century with no voice had left it wordless so that only a weak attempt at words came out. That was okay, he could learn to speak again.

“Jaycen? Are you alright?” He nodded slowly at Kaya’s question, eyes wide. “You’re…you’re…”

“Human,” Lizette finished for her. “I knew it.” The mage had come to stand just a ways away from Kaya, giving them space. 

“Knew what?” Kaya asked.

“I wondered if the only way to break it was to kill off the source, but I never imagined we could actually do it.”

“I can’t believe she was human, this entire time.”

“A witch is something that comes to be, not something that is born. Like Jaycen, she might have been able to change the way she looked with the power she accumulated, but she couldn’t change what she truly was.” That made sense, but it still made Kaya’s heard hurt to think about it. Lizette removed her overcoat, now tattered and bloodied but still warm and handed it to Kaya, gesturing at Jaycen. 

For he was of course, as naked as the day he was born.

Kaya finally let the laughter burst forth at Jaycen’s confusion which turned into embarrassment. She handed him the overcoat, which he took gladly, his movements a little awkward and uncoordinated after so long as a werewolf. All their hard work, all the years of trying different methods, killing the witch had been the only way. A seemingly impossible way, but the only way. 

“I believe only Jaycen could have done it,” Lizette helped Jaycen to stand when Kaya struggled to do so with one arm. “The dagger could only have distracted her for a second. Had you left it any longer…well, the outcome would have been very different.” Kaya couldn’t agree more. There had been but one word left to speak of the curse and Kaya’s fate would have been sealed.

Jaycen noticed Kaya’s injured wrist then, guilt flashing across his features. He stood in front of her, at least a head’s height taller than her so she had to look up at him. Kaya waited only a heartbeat of a second before she closed him in a one-armed hug, her tears of joy pulling a sob from her chest. Jaycen was alive, he was safe and he was _human._ Even if they weren’t listening, Kaya thanked all the Gods she could name.

Burying her face in the scattering of chest hair, Kaya breathed in Jaycen’s scent. He still smelt like the forest, of dew on the grass and pine needles in the autumn. Kaya was sure her heart would burst with the love she felt for him.

Pulling back a little and tipping her head back, her eyes fell to Jaycen’s lips. She couldn’t count all the times she wished she could kiss him. When Jaycen smiled down at her, the look on his face mirroring what she felt, he bent down to meet her. It didn’t matter about the blood, the dirt or the sweat that was surely on both their faces. All that mattered was that he was safe. The future, once so uncertain, now didn’t look so dark.

In the waning light of the moon, for the first time since they met, Kaya pressed her lips to Jaycen’s, and kissed him.


	8. Chapter 8 - Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a quiet corner of the country, sits a stone cottage with a lot more going on within than you could ever imagine.

The sun was warm on Kaya’s skin as she finally accepted that summer was well on its way. The fresh mornings that spring held had been getting more humid in the last few weeks to the point she could only sleep with a thin sheet across her. Jaycen’s body temperature ran hot, and she often found herself overheating a little simply by having him touch her in some way. It didn’t matter if it was just his hand on her leg, his arm across her back or his foot on her calf, any slight touch was too hot. 

The leaves on the trees were a vibrant green that matched the grass of the rolling southwestern hills of Erstweald. Summer flowers were coming into bloom, colourful migrating birds had arrived for the start of the season and their calls filled the forest behind Kaya’s cottage with a diverse and beautiful song. Although still the less travelled road, the winding dirt track that ran past the cottage and further west had seen more visitors over the last couple of years than Kaya thought she had ever seen since she moved here. It was a good thing, she thought, as she watched one now. Two large caravels pulled by muscular horses came from the west, heading east towards the city itself. The men driving and those on the back, tipped their wide brimmed hats in greeting as they passed, pale skin and paler hair indicating they originated from the marshlands.

The summer fair was starting to take form.

Lizette would be heading back from Suryntha about now, a new collection of books to sell of questionable origin and even more questionable prices. Kaya looked forward to seeing what she had this time.

When the travellers had gone, a noise to her left Kaya had her turn her head and watch as Jaycen walked up the hill next to the cottage to come and stand beside her. His black hair was shorter now, half tied up and half down, he wore a loose cotton shirt and trousers and had his boots on that he favoured for doing a lot of walking. His eyes, still the same beautiful yellow and framed by dark lashes, regarded Kaya with such fondness that it had her heart beating faster. 

“We’re about to head out.” He gestured behind him where Lucius, Flint, Ozias and Torin chatted amongst themselves at the bottom of the hill. They were dressed much the same as their father and Lucius had Jaycen’s bow and quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder. Jaycen came to stand in front of Kaya, his big hands running up her arms to rest one on her neck and the other on her cheek. “Are you alright?” He asked when Kaya didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, fine.” She smiled at him to reassure him, but he didn’t look convinced. 

“I can take the boys hunting another time if you’re not feeling well? I know you hate summer.”

“I don’t _hate_ it, I just wish it didn’t get as hot as the deserts of Suryntha that’s all. Especially now.” Kaya touched her belly with one hand; it was now obvious to any that looked her way that she was with child rather than looking like she had eaten a large meal. “I’m fine, really.” She answered his earlier question. “Go take the boys and show them how it’s done.” 

Jaycen smiled and nodded his understanding, but not before stepping closer and resting his forehead against hers. It had taken him a long time to learn to speak again, but now he had regained his voice, Kaya couldn’t get enough of the baritone pitch he held. 

Kaya could hardly believe it would be three years this winter that he had become human, yet just the same way that when he was a werewolf and would do human things, the opposite was now the case and he would do werewolf things. Eating with utensils was still strange, clothes seemed a little unnecessary, shoes even more so, and why must I _shake someone’s hand_ when I first meet them? Whereas Jaycen could always read, learning to use a quill again and write words made Kaya feel like a school tutor as she had been teaching the same with the boys. Despite the challenges Jaycen faced, he never complained, only questioned the occasional thing when he didn’t understand.

The changes were not just in the traits of his personality, but physical also. Along with his wolf eyes that gave him fantastic night vision, he never lost his otherworldly strength, meticulous hearing or superior sense of smell that had him declare the market carriage laden with goods was heading their way before Kaya could even so much as hear the grinding of its wheels. The curse of the werewolf had been with him long enough that it had left its mark upon his very soul. He would never be truly normal and the final giveaway was when Kaya realised that although Jaycen looked human now, her two new children inside her were most definitely not. Like he could before, Jaycen could sense their number and reveal they were very much baby werewolves who, later in life, would be able to shift back and forth much like Lucius, Flint, Ozias and Torin could now.

For the breaking of the curse had changed their sons too. 

Kaya already knew she would always be fascinated by magic, even more so by werewolf magic, but the day she had found four naked _boys,_ laughing hysterically in glee in the cave instead of werewolves, Kaya was quite sure she would have fallen to the ground had Jaycen not been behind her. 

She was pulled from her inner musings by the feel of Jaycen’s lips on hers, eyes falling closed, kissing him back and pressing herself against him as close as she could get with her belly in the way.

“Ew!”

“Gross!”

“Oh come on, you do you _have_ to do that?”

“Father, I thought you were taking us hunting? You can kiss Mother later.” 

They separated, laughing at the boys who were pretending to gag and covering their eyes in mock horror. Gods, they were far too intelligent for the seven year olds they physically were.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming.” Jaycen laughed, turned to leave but paused just before he made his way back down the gentle slope of the hill. “What do you want to eat tonight? In the mood for anything specific?” 

“Nah, I’m sure whatever you catch will be delicious. Just don’t let the boys massacre it too much before I can cook it properly.”

“It tastes better raw.”

“Yeah, whatever you say, dear.” Kaya rolled her eyes at him and turned back to look over the stark green and blue contrast of the land and the sky.

“I love you.” A whisper on the gentle breeze but it reached Kaya’s ears. She tilted her head, one side of her mouth a smile as she regarded his handsome face. 

“And I love you. More than anything in the world.” She saw the boys huffing in annoyance and impatience behind him. “Except maybe for them, of course.” She added in jest and Jaycen grinned.

“Father!” A chorus of annoyed children.

“Gods above, I’m _coming!”_ He yelled back at them, but his voice was anything but angry. “I best go now before they decide to massacre me instead.” With that said a wink, he ushered the boys ahead, all of them waving back at Kaya before disappearing into the forest.

That night, as Kaya lay in her bed with the light of the full moon streaming through the windows, she felt the first flutters of life against her palm underneath her navel. It was the first time the babies had moved and it had her grabbing Jaycen’s hand for him to feel it too. Having been sound asleep, he jerked awake but calmed quickly when he realised what was happening. His eyes were almost luminous in the darkness of the bedroom. Kaya could feel her heart clenching with affection, for their unborn children, for their four rambunctious sons asleep in the next room and for _him._

“I’ll be right back.” She whispered to Jaycen, kissing him quickly and throwing back the sheet from her body. He gave her a confused look but huffed a small laugh when he saw where she was going.

In her study downstairs Kaya lit a candle, found the nearest quill and scribbled a short note on a piece of parchment for one of her pigeons to deliver to Lizette tomorrow morning.

_I need yarrow tea and I need it now._

Standing up too quickly had her feeling a little dizzy and it was only a matter of time before the hot flushes became too much of a thing for her to function normally. If she was lucky, maybe it would be a little more bearable this time around. The back of her mind doubted that very much and she almost laughed out loud in the quiet space of the study, the room full to bursting with Jaycen’s collection of books added since. They would probably need to look for a bigger house soon which meant keeping the new children a secret until they could shift to human forms and spending money and explaining to Jaycen they simply cannot live in his cave in the forest and…

Kaya smiled to herself. It didn’t matter what challenges she would face, not now she had Jaycen and the boys at her back. It made everything worth it.

Blowing out the candle, she headed back upstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, we come to the end of Kaya and Jaycen's story. What was supposed to be a one-shot that began to take form in January this year, turned into a full on multi chapter fic with the best part of 100k words combined to keep me sane during Covid-19 lockdown. It's been hella fun to write and I hope hella fun to read as well, if not mildly entertaining and if not that, then total weird shit lol. Feel free to leave your thoughts of love or hate. 
> 
> After all this time, there is no way I am done with coming up with more weird shit for ya'll to enjoy. See you around.
> 
> \- HWR

**Author's Note:**

> If someone knows how to create a proper line break between paragraphs in the HTML editor, please let me know. I cannot make sense of it and I hate using those stupid asterisks.
> 
> \- HWR


End file.
